


Love Alarm

by Multiple_Universes



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ice Dancing, Angst, Explicit Sexual Content, Fluff, M/M, Model Victor Nikiforov, Slow Burn, Smut, brief mention of alcohol abuse, skating with the stars
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-26
Updated: 2021-02-10
Packaged: 2021-02-28 00:41:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 67,656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22904884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Multiple_Universes/pseuds/Multiple_Universes
Summary: There’s an app for that… There’s an app for everything these days, even an app that will tell you if someone likes you. Just download the Love Alarm and watch your phone ring as people around you fall in love with you.Unfortunately, humanity has yet to come up with an app that tells you what to do when you sign up to participate in Skating with the Stars and you’re paired with the most attractive person on the planet.
Relationships: Katsuki Yuuri/Victor Nikiforov
Comments: 258
Kudos: 243





	1. An Easy Life

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is very loosely based on the TV show Love Alarm and by loosely based I mean that I watched the trailer, thought it was a neat idea and decided to write a fic about it.

_There’s an app for that. An app for the weather, for what to wear, for what is happening in the world, for your health, for your finances. There’s an app for everything, even an app for showing you what’s inside someone else’s heart._

Victor Nikiforov’s life was easy. Technology had seen to that.

“Good morning, Victor!” his phone’s voice chirruped right above his ear, as it had so many mornings before. “The time is now 6:00 am. The current temperature is 41 F. It is cloudy with a strong wind. Rain is expected around 7:00 pm. Have a good day!”

Victor sat up in his bed to find that his dog Makkachin had climbed up on it overnight and had fallen asleep near his feet.

Victor scratched Makkachin’s head and slipped out of bed. He held his phone in his hand, studying the outfit an app had picked out for his morning jog.

The phone played soothing music as he brushed his teeth and got dressed.

When he was done, he plugged in a set of earphones and stepped out of his apartment, locking the door behind him.

“Are you ready to go running?” his phone asked.

“Ready,” he said as he stepped outside.

He let his phone tell him where to go, when to turn and listened to the audio tracks it picked out for him. He let his phone decide when he should go back and made the breakfast it suggested to him.

“Makkachin needs to go out for a walk!” his phone reminded him.

Victor washed the dishes and went to get Makkachin’s leash.

It really was very easy. All he had to do was follow instructions. Only a few times did he have to make an actual choice and even then he usually picked whichever was the first option the phone gave him.

His phone told him when to leave his apartment so that he would arrive at work by 9:00 am and it told him which route to take while driving there. Every time he changed clothes, he consulted his phone for what to wear.

His phone helped him throughout the day and especially once the day ended. When he got stuck in traffic on the way back it kept him company and played yet more music for him as it nestled comfortably in its stand next to the steering wheel.

After he picked a place for dinner, another app popped up on his phone. “Would you like a hot date tonight?” a different voice from his phone’s usual tone asked. This one was deep and seductive, the kind of voice that invited the listener to get into bed with it.

That day had been particularly trying and the rows of cars in front of him looked longer than ever.

“Yes,” he answered. He was desperate for one. “List,” he ordered.

“Nikita,” the phone began and an image appeared on the screen of a naked young man standing with his hands resting confidently on his hips. “Age: twenty-seven. Rating: five stars. Preferences: bondage –”

“Next,” Victor cut off. He needed a hot bath, a massage – Hold on. “Stop,” he cut in before his phone could say anything else. “New search. Filter: five stars. Search tag: massage.”

“Twenty-eight entries found.”

“List,” Victor ordered.

Up ahead the traffic didn’t seem to have plans to move anywhere anytime soon.

“Andrei. Age: Twenty-five. Rating –” The screen changed from a picture of a naked man lying on a bed to a black screen with a name on it and two buttons on the bottom. “Incoming call from Steve Alexander,” his phone declared in its usual voice.

Victor gave the phone a surprised look. He didn’t know anyone by that name. No, it was more accurate to say that he couldn’t remember anyone by that name. He rarely remembered anyone’s name: his phone did that for him. “Accept call.”

“Hello?” a voice Victor definitely didn’t recognize called out. “Am I speaking with Victor Nikiforov?”

“Yes.” What did this person want? Was he about to offer Victor another job?

“My name is Steve Alexander. I’m responsible for finding participants for reality shows,” he explained.

Victor glanced at his phone. The screen changed to show him a photo of Steve Alexander and a brief biography that Victor didn’t bother reading.

“I’m looking for celebrities interested in participating in Skating with the Stars,” he explained.

“I love that show!” Victor exclaimed. He’d spent several Friday evenings watching it and remembered all too well how much he’d wished he was one of the participants.

“Excellent,” Steve responded in a calm tone. “Can I count on you to participate, then?”

His agent wasn’t going to be happy when he found out about this, but Victor wasn’t too bothered about that. Let the man say what he liked, Victor deserved to have some fun once in a while. “Yes, I will look forward to it.” Did that sound too eager? He wondered if he should’ve come across as eager or not.

“I’ll send you all the details,” Steve promised. “Thank you and have a good evening.”

“You too,” Victor replied.

The traffic started to move as the call ended.

The phone screen changed back to an image of a naked man. “Andrei,” the deep voice resumed. “Age: Twenty-five. Rating: five stars. Trained in a massage school. Very good with his hands.”

The car was stuck again and Victor used this chance to flip through Andrei’s photos. The man had helpfully posted front and back shots as well as close-ups of his face.

“This one,” Victor decided. He was too tired to go through the list and, besides, he’d already called Andrei twice and had been happy both times. He’d only gone through the photos because he really enjoyed looking at them.

He knew the app would sort all the details out for him. It would arrange everything so that after Victor came home from his dinner Andrei would be waiting for him.

This was why when he entered his apartment he wasn’t surprised to find a handsome young man greeting him at the door, dressed in very tight pants and nothing else.

“I already filled the bathtub with hot water for you,” Andrei said in a voice as seductive as the one the app used. “Let me help you out of those clothes.”

Victor let the man undress him and lead him to the bathroom where he reclined in the hot water as his hot date massaged his shoulders.

“Another hard day at work?” he asked sympathetically.

“Yes.” Victor sighed and closed his eyes. This was exactly what he needed right now.

“All that is over now…”

Victor reclined his head onto the man’s lap. “Thank goodness…”

Andrei’s hands slid down Victor’s chest, rubbing it gently.

Victor thought about the new app someone had mentioned at work that day. What was it called again? Love Alarm?

He reached out for his phone and searched for the app. It came with a little fee, but that wasn’t a big deal. He clicked download, ignored the terms of service and opened it.

“Is that the new Love Alarm app?” Andrei asked, lowering his lips to Victor’s ear.

“It is.” Victor watched a circle appear on his screen. The app searched for something. “It’s supposed to tell you if someone within 30 feet has a crush on you,” Victor explained.

A little heart popped up on his screen with a little “ding!” and Victor smiled.

Andrei pressed his lips behind his ear as his hands gave Victor’s thighs a gentle squeeze. “I’m ready to move into the bedroom, now…” he whispered.

Victor slipped free of Andrei’s hold and stood up. He watched with satisfaction as Andrei admired his body before getting up to fetch a towel. Victor stepped out of the bathtub and let Andrei wipe him dry.

Both men walked back to the bedroom where the massage continued before turning into sex.

Later as Victor felt himself start drifting off Andrei pulled a blanket over him and went to take a shower before coming back out to wish Victor a good night.

Victor sent money, adding a tip and leaving another 5-star rating.

Andrei checked his phone to make sure that the money arrived. “Thank you, darling.” He gave Victor an affectionate pat on the buttocks, guessing correctly which bump on the bed to aim for before leaving.

They really _did_ have an app for everything Victor could possibly need in his life.

Love Alarm, like so many other popular apps, spread through the masses with incredible speed. Adults laughed and made jokes that it was an app for high school kids while secretly checking how many times their alarms went off throughout the day.

Victor saw it as yet another part of his daily routine: arrive at work and listen to the alarm ring in his pocket as he strode down the halls. He had to silence the alarm right before entering the studio, of course, but he still had the alarm go off several hundred times a day.

It was only natural that it would go off so much – after all, he was the hottest model of them all.

The light in the upstairs apartment flickered. It was the only light that was on in the five-floor building at this early hour.

Yuuri Katsuki suppressed a sigh. The lightbulb in his desk lamp needed changing (or, perhaps, just a bit of adjusting), but he had no time for that right now.

He sat at his desk and wrote in his journal. He drew a little schedule on the side of the page, writing what he had to do every hour of that day and then wrote a few inspirational words for himself. Once he’d thought all this was silly and old-fashioned, but now it became part of his early morning routine.

_Today’s goal: land the quad flip at least once._

The notebook before him was filled to bursting with his worries, his goals and his thoughts. It was a big part of him, a window into his heart. This was why he made sure to hide it well so that no one would ever find it.

He flipped to the end and stared at the picture he’d cut out of a magazine and glued onto the last page. The picture was of a handsome man with short blond hair and very striking blue eyes. He was crouched down next to the most beautiful brown poodle Yuuri had ever seen.

Two years ago, the magazine had been delivered by mistake to his flat like an omen of the things to come.

_Yuuri returned home late from practice to find a little package waiting for him on his doorstep. He crouched down to pick it up and stared at the cover. It showed a handsome man in a shirt that had a very daring v-opening on the front. His short blond hair fell over his face, his lips were parted and his eyes were half-closed as if he was about to breathe out loudly._

_“Hot sex tips,” the text sprawled over the cover declared in font just a bit smaller than the title of the magazine itself._

_Yuuri’s eyes trailed down to the bottom of the cover where he could see just enough of the model’s legs to notice the tight pants he was wearing._

_Then he noticed the sticker in the bottom right hand corner and recognized his neighbour’s name and address. The postman had delivered it to him by mistake._

_Yuuri carried it downstairs and knocked politely on the door of the man who lived right under him._

_“Yes?” a voice called through the door._

_“It’s Yuuri,” he explained, raising his voice. “The postman dropped your magazine off at my door by mistake. I brought it –”_

_The man opened his door and stared down at the magazine in Yuuri’s hands. “Oh this?” he asked, giving a dismissive shrug. “I already downloaded their app. I don’t know why they bother sending me a physical copy.”_

_“What do you want me to do with it?” Yuuri asked as politely as he could._

_“Do whatever you want. I don’t care,” the neighbour announced and disappeared back into his apartment, banging the door closed._

_Yuuri carried the magazine back to his apartment like a museum piece. He brought it into his room where he sat at the table and flipped through the pages until he found another photo of the model on the front. This time he was shown with a poodle in casual clothes that still managed to look really expensive._

He’d kept the picture for the poodle. Or so he told himself until he realized that his attention was constantly drifting to the handsome man in the photo.

As always, Yuuri let his eyes linger on the picture for a few minutes before he closed his journal and got up from his table.

It was too late to go back to sleep, so instead he opened his window and leaned out, trying to figure out what the weather was like. Ten minutes later, Yuuri left the building to go on his usual morning jog.

He liked the city in the mornings. The streets were empty along his route, save for a few people here and there walking their dogs. In the winter months, when the days were short, it was still dark at this time of day and in the summer he would be sent just after sunrise. His route passed by a park and on some foggy mornings as the sun rose its rays would fill the fog, making it look as if the fields were covered in pools of gold. It was a magical time.

That morning was grey and bleak, the kind of morning that made him wish he’d stayed in bed. He made a big circle before heading straight for the skating rink.

World Championships were only three days away.

The World Championships flooded the media with photos, speculations and even a few funny anecdotes. Yuuri, who’d had his fair share of bad encounters with the media, avoided the whole thing altogether.

He finished second in Worlds, feeling as if he ended up in last place. It wasn’t just that he’d made a silly mistake in the second half of his free skate that had cost him the coveted gold medal, it was also the fact that he reached the end of the season with no ideas for what to do next season.

 _I can still compete,_ he thought. _I can work harder next season and come up with a more difficult program, but…_ He couldn’t explain why, but the competitive spark inside him had gone out.

He went back to his small apartment in Detroit, deciding to take a week off. He was just tired, he told himself. The past month he’d gone all out with hardly a moment to stop and breathe, so he spent a week wandering around the city. He took a trip to Boston, enjoying the old parts of that city. As the sun set, he would find a rustic old café and sit down with a cup of coffee or tea, depending on his mood.

But the week ended and still he felt dread at the thought of putting together routines for another season only to skate them over and over, trying to get every bit perfect.

It took him another three days to find the courage to come to practice.

“What’s wrong, Yuuri?” Celestino asked him as soon as Yuuri went out on the ice. “Are you sick? You don’t look very good.”

Yuuri tried to smile at his coach. “I’m ok, really. It’s just…” he hesitated. He knew Celestino was the kind of man who preferred the truth over a sugar-coated lie and he also knew that Celestino didn’t take things personally. “I’m not feeling very motivated right now,” he admitted. “Maybe it’s… it’s probably temporary.”

Celestino regarded him with a thoughtful look. He had been Yuuri’s coach for well over a decade and he understood Yuuri better than anyone, better even, perhaps, than everyone else. “Maybe you need some rest,” he suggested. “Why don’t you take the first half of the next season off? Go do something different for a little while and come back again for Nationals in January?”

“Maybe I’ll feel better next week,” Yuuri suggested. “I don’t need to miss the Grand Prix, surely!”

Celestino shook his head. “Don’t worry about it, Yuuri. We all need a break from time to time. You’ve competed for seven seasons straight, I don’t think anything bad will happen if you take some time off to find more inspiration.” He patted Yuuri on the shoulder. “It’s more important for you to stay healthy than for you to win gold. And that includes being healthy up here,” he tapped his head with his finger.

Yuuri accepted, overcome with a strong sense of relief.

Celestino was right, he repeated to himself as he went home.

Celestino was right, he thought the next day.

Celestino was right, he repeated a week later when he lay on his bed, bored out of his mind and not knowing what to do with himself.

 _Maybe I should go back home,_ he thought. _I could go see my parents again._ He closed his eyes.

Why was it so easy to leave a place and so hard to go back there?

 _I can’t do this for eight months!_ _Tomorrow I’m going to find a job. It will give me something to do and I can get more money out of it._

Most of Yuuri’s career had been sponsored by big companies who – in exchange for Yuuri wearing clothes with their logos – paid enough to cover his living expenses in Detroit and even some extra spending. He wondered now if they would stop sending money once they found out that he was taking a little break from competing.

Then he wondered what sort of job he would get. One of Yuuri’s fondest memories was of a job he’d had a few years ago. It had only lasted a month, but what a month it had been!

Yuuri’s phone rang, startling him out of his memories.

“Hello?” Unlike everyone else Yuuri knew, he didn’t have caller ID, meaning that he never knew who was calling him until he answered his phone.

“Hello! Am I speaking with Yuuri Katsuki? Your coach Celestino gave me your number,” the stranger said. He spoke with a strong accent, but Yuuri couldn’t place it.

“Yes. Who is calling?” He braced himself for some sort of comment about caller ID. He’d already heard what felt like every single possible comment and really didn’t want to hear any more.

“I’m Steve Alexander. It’s my job to hire participants for reality shows.”

Yuuri panicked. Reality shows? An image flashed in his mind of people doing odd things just to get others to watch it. All the most awkward scenes would be turned into gifs to be paraded around the internet. The viewers would download the app for each show and vote for their favourite contestants.

Unaware of Yuuri’s reaction, the man continued, “We’re one person short for Skating with the Stars and I was hoping that you could help us out?”

“Skating with the Stars?” Yuuri repeated. Did they really send skaters out into space for a reality show?

“Yes,” the man confirmed. “Maybe you’ve seen the previous season?”

“No.” The answer came out colder than Yuuri had intended, but, then, he was about to turn the man down.

“Let me tell you a bit about the show.” It was the tone used by salesmen around the world and Yuuri felt a strong temptation to hang up right now. “We take figure skaters – such as yourself, for instance – and pair them up with celebrities – actors, singers, so on – ones that haven’t skated in competitions. With me so far?”

“Yes.”

“Great! These pairs then compete against each other,” the man went on. “We have judges that give the pairs points and the viewers get to vote pairs off the show.”

It sounded much better than Yuuri had expected. In fact, it sounded like it could even be fun. Depending on who he was paired up with, of course.

“If I agree to participate,” he began as carefully as he could, “who will be my partner?”

“That will be decided in a week. We’ll round up all the participants and announce who the pairs are. We have an app that will pick out the perfect pair for you.”

Yuuri couldn’t help thinking that this sounded like the set-up for some sort of match-making show. But, then, he wasn’t very surprised – people used apps to make all their decisions. He shook his head, glad that Steve couldn’t see him. “Will I get paid?”

“You will be paid a set amount for participating and an extra bonus for every stage you get to. The winner will get a special bonus on top,” Steve explained. “Look, I’d rather not talk amounts over the phone. You can come look at the contract and let me know what you think. What do you say to dropping by tomorrow? I’m in downtown Detroit. That’s not far from where you are, right?”

“Yes.” Yuuri wasn’t too worried about the money: he was more bothered by who his partner would turn out to be and the more he thought about it, the more the question nagged at him.

“Excellent! Then let’s both make an appointment in MyCalendar for…”

Yuuri walked over to his desk, opened his journal and wrote down the date and address.

No, this was a bad idea. He will go over there and pretend that the money wasn’t enough. Then he will get on a plane to Japan and see his parents. He wasn’t going to do this. It was a bad idea.

_Yuuri stood at the top of a very tall mountain. He looked down and saw clouds floating below. A narrow trail twisted and turned up the side of the mountain. That was how he’d come here._

_He raised his head to look out and saw nothing but mountain peaks spread out ahead of him, vanishing into the horizon. They all had different heights, some taller than his and some shorter. The sun peeked among them, blinding him with its bright rays._

_It was so quiet. The air was so clear here._

_He turned to take in the view on the other side and saw that he wasn’t at the peak at all. The mountain rose still higher and the winding trail rose with it. There were no trees up here – just moss and rocks._

_How high did this mountain rise? Wasn’t there a snowy peak at the very top? Would Yuuri ever make it up there?_

_He turned around completely on the spot. He was all along up here. If he perished on this mountainside, no one would even know where he’d gone and where to look for him._

I have to keep going, _he thought._ I need to get to the top. It’s very important.

_He made a few steps down the trail and the moss shifted, the rocks moved before his eyes._

_The trail was gone._

Yuuri awoke, feeling unsettled. It took him some time after he opened his eyes to make sense of what he was seeing.

The white was just the ceiling of his room and not the snowy peak of a mountain. He was in his bed, in his little apartment in Detroit.

He turned over and slid out of bed.

The dream was beginning to fade from his memory. All he could recall were the endless mountain peaks and the bright disk of the sun.

He stepped into the bathroom and washed his face with cold water. The little window was open a crack, letting in a light breeze. He could feel the soft bathroom rug under his bare feet as he walked over to his towel to wipe his face dry.

He was _here_.

He closed his eyes. He’d been so determined in his dream that he needed to climb to the very peak, that he could still feel an echo of that feeling even now.

Why had the peak been so important?

He set the towel down on the rack and stared at his reflection.

He couldn’t explain why after that he got dressed and strode over to Steve’s office where he signed a contract to participate in Skating with the Stars.

The whole time he couldn’t shake the feeling that he was in some kind of dream.

It was going to be fine.

A week later the pairs were chosen. It was the first time Yuuri got to see all of the contestants that would be competing with him. They gathered in a large round room where they studied each other with interest, some trying to be discreet about it, while others had no qualms about their curiosity being obvious to those around them.

Yuuri recognized most of the skaters who’d come. Some of them had competed against him, while others were people he’d met at competitions. He exchanged greetings with a few of them, nodding when they noticed him and hoping that they wouldn’t try to start a conversation with him.

His stomach was turning over and over, like a restless person unable to fall asleep.

He couldn’t help noticing how good-looking everyone they’d invited to the show was and it was only making him more nervous. Where had they found these people? Were they all models? He didn’t recognize a single one of them.

A door opened and Steve entered, taking in the sight of everyone with a bright smile. “Hello, everyone! So glad you could all make it!” The lights in the room changed and Steve paused for a moment before looking at a point above Yuuri’s head. “Welcome to the first round when the pairs are selected!”

 _They’re recording this,_ Yuuri remembered and did his best to smile.

Steve was dressed like a host and held a tablet in his hand. There must have been a little microphone pinned to his suit, because his voice boomed from the speakers suspended in the walls.

He lowered his eyes to the tablet in his hands. “Our programmers wrote a special algorithm that is about to come up with the best pairs. You will get to see it in action for yourself. In a few minutes the screen behind me will show it go through all the names and pick out the best possible pairs!”

The screen on the wall behind him turned on and showed two long lists of names. The names moved around. Yuuri watched his own name drop several lines down and then go up two lines. After several minutes shuffling, they came to rest at last.

Yuuri stared at the name that ended up next to his: Victor Nikiforov. Who was that?

The host grinned and announced the pairs one by one.

Yuuri watched beams shine down on each pair as their names were read out. The host took his time going through the list, but still Yuuri knew he had to be prepared to see where the light would fall.

“Yuuri Katsuki and Victor Nikiforov!” boomed over the speakers.

A beam of light appeared somewhere in the crowd. The people between them stepped out of the way and for a moment Yuuri had a vision of a beautiful face bathed in soft light. He caught sight of short blond hair, striking blue eyes and wondered if he was dreaming.

It was _him_ : the man from the photograph in his journal.

The crowd between them closed and two other names were read out.

 _No, it can’t be him. I must be imagining it! He probably just looks a lot like him!_ Yuuri reasoned with himself. Was this really possible?

He was afraid of finding out for certain. This couldn’t be happening. Coincidences like that were impossible and they definitely didn’t happen to him!

The host finished reading the list out and everyone searched the crowd for their partner. Yuuri searched too, wondering how he would find the right person, if that vision had been nothing more than an illusion.

It suddenly felt too crowded here, even though there were only twenty people here. He found himself frustrated by the number of participants and how slowly they moved.

Then someone stepped out of his way and there he was again – the man from the photo, standing right before him with that picture perfect smile on his face.

“Hello, Yuuri,” he winked. “I’m Victor! I’m your partner! I really hope we win the competition together!”

Yuuri pinched his own hand. He _wasn’t_ dreaming. This really _was_ happening.

As he stared at his partner in mute shock another observation occurred to him. _He looks even better than in that photo!_


	2. Practice Makes Perfect

Yuuri Katsuki. As soon as Victor saw his name on the screen, he took out his phone and tried to find out everything he could about his new partner.

A photo of a cute young man holding up a gold medal appeared at once. He was in a glittering figure skating costume and his hair was gelled back. Victor took in the medal count listed under the photo – two gold medals in Worlds and three… His eyes skipped on ahead, occasionally stopping on words like “Olympics” and “Nationals”. He was no expert on the different types of competitions, but the medal count impressed him. Of course they would pair him up with one of the best figure skaters. He ought to be the one who won!

He put his phone away and watched the beams of light pick out the pairs.

That cute Yuuri was somewhere in this crowd. He turned his head and caught the beam of light just as the boy’s name was announced. Victor gave him his most charming smile. Was it his imagination, or did the boy just blush?

This was going to be fun, Victor decided.

The list ended and everyone went off to find their partners in the crowd.

Victor strode past the other contestants with confidence, knowing that there would be at least one camera pointing at him and certain that he looked better than everyone out there.

People stepped out of his way and, finally, there he was – Yuuri Katsuki.

Yuuri had a slightly lost expression on his face that turned into a nervous smile as soon as he spotted Victor coming towards him.

The photo hadn’t done his good looks any justice and Victor found his grin widening. “Hello, Yuuri,” he winked. “I’m Victor! I’m your partner,” It wasn’t the cleverest introduction, but Victor found it hard to sound clever with someone as cute as Yuuri watching him. He didn’t know where to look – his beautiful eyes, his soft mouth, his hands, or somewhere else entirely? “I really hope we win the competition!” he added, forcing himself to look into Yuuri’s eyes.

Yuuri fidgeted and then nodded. “Me too.”

Victor suddenly realized that he needed to capture this moment. He pulled his phone back out of his pocket. “Let’s take a photo together?”

“Sure.” There was a hint of puzzlement in Yuuri’s voice, but when Victor held up his phone Yuuri looked at it expectantly.

“Say “stars”!” Victor prompted, turning his head to capture it from the best angle.

“Stars!” Yuuri called out obediently.

Victor pressed the button and looked to see how the photo turned out. “Perfect!” All the photo needed now was a filter and it could go on his Instagram. He worked quickly and posted the picture in seconds before pocketing his phone again and giving his new partner his full attention. “Did you want to take a photo with your phone too?”

Yuuri shook his head. “It’s fine. Let’s talk about the competition.”

Right. Victor gave Yuuri his handsomest smile. “Yes?”

“Have you ever skated before?” It was an odd question to make. Why ask when Yuuri could just read it in Victor’s biography?

“I took lessons when I was small,” he said, reciting his biography almost word-for-word, “but when I turned twelve a modelling agency spotted me and I decided to work for them instead, so I stopped.”

“Oh.” Yuuri’s face fell. “That’s so sad.”

“Sad? Why? I like modelling.”

Yuuri coloured. “S-sorry. No. You’re right: it’s not sad.”

“How will it all work?” Victor asked.

“I don’t know,” Yuuri admitted.

“I mean the training,” Victor clarified. “You’re the figure skater. Aren’t you going to be the one to decide how often we will train?”

“Am I?” The idea seemed to catch Yuuri by surprise.

Victor pulled his phone out. “I suppose they’ll send us a training calendar, but we can always use the training schedule you used when you were competing.”

“I guess.” Yuuri was silent for several second before he added, “Usually I spend whole days training.”

“Oh.” Victor’s heart fell. He hadn’t expected to be forced to train for a whole day. Perhaps that was why his agent had given him such a hard time when he’d signed up for this.

Victor couldn’t think of anything else to say, so he absent-mindedly checked his messages and watched the likes and notes pour in for the photo he’d just posted. People were already promising to watch every single minute. He ignored the questions, unsure of how to answer any of them, and basked in all the admiration pouring his way.

He threw a sideways glance at Yuuri and noticed that the skater was watching the people around him. It was strange: he hadn’t taken his phone out even once!

He noticed Victor’s attention on him and turned around to face him. “I don’t think they’re recording us anymore,” he said. “I’ll go ask the host about the training.”

Victor’s phone buzzed. He lowered his head and saw a new event pop up on his calendar app. “It’s all here. Just check your phone.

Yuuri leaned over Victor’s phone. He studied the schedule as if committing it to memory. “Thank you.” He smiled at Victor. “I’ll see you tomorrow then, ok?”

And just like that he vanished into the crowd.

Victor stared after him in amazement.

They were filming the show in Detroit, which meant that Victor had to leave his big and comfortable apartment in the heart of New York in favour of a smaller one in Detroit. Still, while he had his phone it wasn’t a big deal. He’d arranged for a dog sitter to look after Makkachin while he was away and he let his phone help him navigate through his days.

That night he lay in his new bed and flipped through photos of men. This time he was in a very picky mood. Why wasn’t there anyone handsome enough? Was it just because he was in Detroit now and not New York?

He turned over onto his back and closed his eyes. He imagined the door opening and Yuuri coming in. His imagination painted him a detailed image of the man, from his dark hair to his soft mouth. He imagined Yuuri undressing nice and slow, stripping the clothes away to reveal a perfect body underneath.

And then he would…

A loud clatter made Victor sit up sharply. He’d dropped his phone! He scrambled out of bed to retrieve it.

An image of a young man with more muscles than Victor generally saw on people stared back up at him. Victor closed the app. He just wasn’t in the mood for this tonight.

He covered himself with his blankets all the way up to his chin and closed his eyes.

Maybe Yuuri would at least visit him in his dreams.

Yuuri couldn’t sleep. He’d taken note of their training schedule in his journal and was now staring at the photo he’d kept all these years. Now he had a name to put to that face.

He had a bad feeling about the whole arrangement. Why had the app paired them together? It couldn’t be a coincidence. Those apps never did truly random things.

He looked at the clock on his wall. It was midnight already. He had to get up in 6 hours.

Yuuri stood up. He turned all his lights off and settled down on his bed, willing sleep to come.

His clock ticked away. Every once in a while the regular rhythm was interrupted by the sound of a car going down his street.

He thought back to the day when he’d cut the photo out of the magazine…

_The magazine had come by mistake. The person who’d lived here before him had subscribed to several men’s fashion magazines._

_These were the kind of magazines where the clothing that men wore, including the underwear, had price tags in the three to four digits. There was no way the previous tenant could afford any of them, so Yuuri wasn’t sure why he’d signed up. Maybe he enjoyed flipping through the pages and imagining himself wearing these clothes, or, maybe – and Yuuri was more inclined to believe that this was closer to the truth – maybe he’d just subscribed to get a chance to look at the hot models._

_Yuuri had also enjoyed looking at the hot models and, so, he didn’t mind getting his one free issue. There was something about those models that placed their attractiveness on a whole other level._

He turned over in his bed and willed himself to think about something else. He needed to stop thinking about Victor, or he risked letting his feelings get in the way of the competition.

_He was standing on a tall mountain, gazing at the different peaks spread out before him. He turned to see the peaks on the other side and noticed that his own mountain didn’t end here. It rose higher still._

_There was the trail at his feet once more and he followed it without even stopping to think._

I must get to the top, _he decided as he walked on along the twists and bends of the trail._ I need to reach the peak.

_He was so thirsty. He stopped, removed his backpack and opened it to go through its contents. There were two pairs of skates inside, a pair of gloves, a dog curled up asleep in the corner and a thick magazine with that photo of Victor and his dog on the cover. Yuuri knew in that way that people knew things in dreams that the magazine was full of Victor’s photos. There was no water bottle._

_Then he remembered: there was a tea house at the top of the mountain. He could get a drink there, surely!_

_He zipped up his backpack and threw it on over his shoulders._

_All he had to do was get to the top._

_The trail under his feet changed. The moss grew over it. Rocks shifted and all traces of the trail vanished as if it had never been there._

Yuuri awoke with a start. There was that strange dream again! Why did he keep dreaming about climbing mountains?

He sat up and folded his arms over his knees. He’d only ever hiked once in his life and that had been a long time ago. Why was he dreaming about hiking now?

He looked at the time. It was a quarter to six. There wasn’t much point in trying to sleep now.

As he got dressed he thought about his partner. Like most singles skaters, he’d never skated with a partner before. He knew it wasn’t going to be easy, but the challenge didn’t scare him. He was much too worried about the coincidence as well as how he would deal with it.

Yuuri stared at his reflection in the mirror and willed himself to calm down. Everything was going to be fine. Victor didn’t need to know about the photo. He did his best to give his reflection a reassuring look.

It was going to be ok.

But all that confidence drained out of him as soon as he saw Victor in skates casually draped over the boards as if he was posing for a photo.

Yuuri’s knees trembled. How could he skate with someone who was so beautiful? He was going to be constantly terrified of hurting him or dropping him.

Victor turned to face him and his face split in a grin.

“Hi,” Yuuri said and felt like an idiot.

“Good morning!” Victor straightened up and walked over awkwardly to Yuuri. “I didn’t want to go out on the ice without you,” he confessed.

Yuuri didn’t question this. Instead, he stepped out onto the ice first and turned around to watch Victor follow him.

Victor stepped out cautiously, as if uncertain if his feet would hold him. They were going to have to start with the basics, Yuuri realized with a sinking feeling.

He skated over to Victor and held out his hands. “Let’s try going around the rink together,” he suggested.

Victor stared at Yuuri’s hands for several seconds before taking them.

Yuuri pulled him along, going backwards. He didn’t have to look down to know that Victor was shuffling his feet awkwardly in an attempt to keep up.

His mind buzzed with worry. How were they going to skate as a pair and compete with the others?

“I really _am_ very terrible at this,” Victor confessed. “It’s been longer than I thought…”

Was that regret in his voice? Was he going to back out now? Yuuri wondered then what he, himself, would do if Victor backed out of the show. He’d have to find something else to do, that much was certain. He had to stop himself then, because he realized that he was already mentally compiling a list of everything he could do if the show fell through for him.

“Maybe if I get enough practice…” Victor mumbled. Then he laughed. “I suppose this is why we’ll need to train all day, every day!” He stumbled and fell forward.

Yuuri caught him, doing his best to remain upright so that they didn’t end up both falling down on the ice. He didn’t want to think about his skates going near Victor’s legs. They wobbled, but remained upright.

“S-sorry…” Victor mumbled, his face buried in Yuuri’s chest.

And then Yuuri became very conscious of Victor’s scent hitting him right in the nose. It wasn’t the scent he was prepared for in that moment, but something he could only describe as expensive cologne. Yuuri wondered then if he was wearing designer clothes too. The man had come to practice as if he was coming to a date!

Yuuri did his best to keep smiling as he helped Victor regain his balance.

Victor lost his balance again and his cheek brushed against Yuuri’s. The scent hit him even harder this time.

Yuuri bit his lip.

“Sorry…” Victor straightened up. He gave Yuuri an innocent look that made it impossible for anyone to be angry with him and smiled that perfect grin that seemed to say “yes every tooth in my mouth is exactly the right size”.

Yuuri’s heart sank even deeper.

They went around in two more circles before Yuuri remembered why they’d come here.

“Move your feet,” he said. “You need to bend your knees too.” He released Victor and spun around on the spot to stand next to him. “Like this.” He demonstrated by skating forward a little.

Victor watched and did his best to copy, nearly falling over again.

“No, no, like _this_.” Yuuri was a terrible instructor and he knew it.

Wasn’t there supposed to be someone here with them to do this? He looked around himself, but the whole rink was empty, save for the two of them.

Victor tried again and caught the tip of his skate on the ice. Again Yuuri caught him before he could come crashing face down on the ice.

“Maybe I should get an app to learn how to skate?” Victor suggested. “There’s a really good one for jogging!”

 _He learned how to jog from an app?_ Yuuri opened his mouth to snap at Victor, but caught himself just in time. He forced himself to calm down before saying, “Let’s try my way first, ok?”

Victor agreed, but it was obvious that he didn’t have a lot of faith in Yuuri’s ability to teach.

_I never thought it was so hard to teach someone how to skate,_ Yuuri wrote in his journal later that evening. _Maybe I’m bad at teaching, or maybe I’m biased because figure skating feels so easy to me, but I couldn’t even teach Victor how to move forward properly! How in the world are we going to skate as a pair?_

_“Push away with your foot. Like this,” Yuuri demonstrated, giving a little push._

_Victor kicked off with one foot and went sliding across the ice. “I’m moving!” he exclaimed happily. Then he panicked. “How do I stop? How do I stop?”_

_Yuuri sped towards him and caught Victor before he got too far. “Let’s try that again?”_

Yuuri put his hands over his face. He’d raised his voice at Victor a few times that day, despite promising himself to be patient. It wasn’t Victor’s fault!

He dropped his head over his journal. It was hopeless.

Victor lay in the bathtub, enjoying a good soak. A naked young man sat on the opposite edge of the bathtub and massaged Victor’s feet. Victor closed his eyes. At this rate, he was going to need a massage every night.

The young man rubbed his thumb between Victor’s toes and Victor gave a happy sigh.

“You’ve been working too hard,” the young man whispered. “Let me look after you.”

Victor reached out for his phone and opened the Love Alarm app. He’d completely forgotten to turn it on today! He watched it ring once and remembered that he wasn’t alone.

“Sir is very busy with all his appointments and business,” the young man said with a smile.

Victor put his phone away and pretended that he’d just gotten an important message. “You know how it is – I need to make sure everything is running smoothly without me.”

The young man gave an understanding nod and took Victor’s other foot. “Will Sir like a full-body massage after his bath?”

“Yes, please,” Victor replied, wondering if the man was going to call him sir the whole evening long.

Yuuri entered the skating rink, half-asleep and a little sweaty from him jog to the rink.

The door barely had time to close before it opened again.

He turned at the sound and watched Victor enter, looking very fresh and bright.

“Good morning!” Victor gave a little wave.

If there had been a crowd of fans here, this was the moment when they would’ve been screaming and fainting from joy.

 _I wonder if looking like that is something you learn when you become a model, or if only people like that can be models._ “Good morning.” He did his best to look happy.

“I hope you won’t go easy on me today,” Victor said with a wink.

Yuuri, who’d secretly worried that Victor would quit after that one day, felt himself relax. “Definitely won’t,” he promised.

“I forgot to tell you,” Victor went on. “I watched a few videos of you skating,” Yuuri tensed. “You’re very good! And I really liked your costumes!”

“Thank you!” Yuuri did his best to relax. “I’m not used to skating in pairs, though, so this will be challenging for me too.”

“I doubt it,” Victor argued. “You’ll learn in no time, I’m sure.”

Yuuri felt his cheeks burn from all of the compliments. Why was Victor saying this? And was it Yuuri’s imagination, or was Victor batting his eyelashes at him? “Uh…” He swallowed nervously. “Thank you. Um… Let’s go out on the ice?”

Victor smiled. He sat down to change into his skates and Yuuri sat down next to him.

Yuuri finished first and sat there, watching Victor struggle. “Here. Let me,” he offered. He waited for Victor to release his skates before crouching down in front of him and tying the laces himself.

When he finished, he raised his head to find that Victor had a blush on his face.

He pretended not to notice as he got up to his feet and helped Victor rise as well.

They held hands as they made for the ice rink and Yuuri only let go when he stepped out onto the ice so that he could turn around and help Victor follow him.

Victor slipped and fell into Yuuri’s arms. Yuuri did his best to stay upright as Victor’s cologne hit him once more.

“S-sorry…” Victor mumbled. He met Yuuri’s eye with a puppy-eyed expression on his face that made being mad at him impossible.

Yuuri resigned himself to another day of catching Victor before he could hit the ice.

A week later Victor felt his patience run out. He felt silly always falling over, unable to make any progress. He was sure that Yuuri’s patience was beginning to run out as well. And why wouldn’t it? Yuuri was the top figure skater in the world. Skating for him came as naturally as breathing and here was Victor – barely able to stay upright!

 _He probably hates me,_ Victor thought.

Victor lay in a massage parlour as a half-naked man worked on his back. He’d decided that morning that he wanted a change from his usual hot dates and decided on just a massage this time. Sure, there was a hot half-naked man touching him and seductive music was playing over the speakers, but he was definitely here only for a massage. Definitely.

His thoughts returned to the Love Alarm app. There were still hundreds of rings on it every day, but those could be from anyone who came close enough to him. What a useless app!

This whole thing was just a big mistake. How would he learn how to skate like a professional in a few months? He couldn’t skate. He couldn’t win. Yuuri definitely hated him and, to top it all off, Detroit was such a boring city!

Victor missed the nightlife in New York, those bars he often went to for a drink after work. None of the places here were half as good as there.

The massager worked on the spot between Victor’s shoulder blades and Victor let out a contented sigh. At least this massage parlour was good. And, what was better, he didn’t have to make any conversation with this man. Victor always hated it when he had to make small talk.

Wasn’t there an app for learning how to do small talk? And what about that app for learning how to skate? He’d have to try that sometime!

He closed his eyes and imagined how impressed Yuuri would be if Victor showed up, knowing how to skate. And this time he would make sure to check his Love Alarm when they were all alone.

Three days later Victor came to one of their training sessions early. He went around the ice several times, smiled happily at his feet and went around again, hoping Yuuri would come soon.

Two more laps went by with still no sign of Yuuri.

Three…

Maybe he’d slept through his alarm.

Four…

Maybe something had happened. Maybe he got sick.

Five…

Or maybe he got tired of this and decided to quit.

Victor stopped. Would they tell him? Would someone come in and announce that Yuuri had decided to drop out, or would they send him a message about it?

He made for the boards to check his phone.

A hundred new notifications popped up – all from Instagram, or Facebook, or something else he didn’t have the time or patience for right now. He flipped through them frantically.

There was no message from Yuuri.

The doors opened and he raised his head in time to see Yuuri rush in, all out of breath. “Sorry I’m late!” he exclaimed.

“It’s alright,” Victor assured him. “Did something happen?”

Yuuri coloured. “I slept in. Have you been waiting long?”

“No,” Victor lied as his fingers swiped past different icons to find the Love Alarm app and open it.

He lowered his eyes and felt his heart pound in his ears.

He could feel Yuuri watching him, but offered no explanation. He needed to know if Yuuri hated him. Victor didn’t stop to remember that while there was love and there was hate, there was also a sort of grey area in between the two feelings, so in that moment there were only the two extremes.

Something went round and round on his screen and didn’t seem to be in the mood for stopping any time soon.

Victor glanced up at Yuuri and then his attention was back on his phone. It was still searching for some indication of liking.

With a wave of panic, Victor began to wonder what came up if someone hated you. Would it be a black “x”? But, no the app just kept searching and searching.

He closed it and set his phone down on the boards. Then he did his best to smile politely as he said, “Let’s practice?”

Yuuri nodded. “Oh yes! Definitely!”

He was going to be charming, he decided. Maybe Yuuri had simply not made up his mind about Victor yet.

He let Yuuri take his hands and lead him and did his best to tell himself that he shouldn’t show off just yet. Let it be a surprise.

Yuuri watched Victor’s feet. “Much better,” he said with a note of encouragement in his voice.

He’d worked hand and all he got for his pains was “much better”?

Victor released Yuuri’s hands and skated forward on his own. _Look_ , he thought. _Look! I can go forward and backwards! Look! I’m in total control!_

He watched Yuuri’s face melt into a smile and felt as if he was flying. Everything was so wonderful! It was perfect, just like he’d imagined it would be and –

He saw the expression on Yuuri’s face change just before he collided with something hard.

“Victor! Are you alright?”

He doubled over with pain and shock, overcome with embarrassment. He’d come so close! So, so close! He had it and then it went and slipped out of his fingers!

“Victor?”

He raised his head to find Yuuri standing over him with a look of concern on his face. “I’m fine,” he lied, feeling his pride sting. His backside hurt, but the pain was slowly fading away. He gave Yuuri an embarrassed look, suppressing the urge to rub the part of himself that ached. “No harm done.”

“That was really good!” Yuuri said. “I– I mean the skating,” he clarified, colouring a little.

“And definitely not the colliding,” Victor added with a hint of teasing in his voice. “I’ll do my best to do less of that in the future.” He was trying to laugh his mistakes off. He’d read somewhere that that it was the best response to this kind of situation.

Yuuri’s face still had that warm expression, so maybe the advice had been right.

There was a long wonderful pause in which the world felt right and everything seemed possible.

“Right,” Yuuri said. “Are you ready for the next lesson?”

Victor’s heart fell. There was more? Of course there was another lesson! How could he forget?

He tried to look as if the idea of the next lesson excited him and wondered if he was convincing. “Yes, of course!”

“Great! Then we’ll start off with a simple jump,” Yuuri said and demonstrated.

It was a jump. But it wasn’t simple.

“Do you want to try it?”

He really, really didn’t, but he couldn’t admit that – Yuuri would ask him why he’d signed up if he didn’t want to try and Victor was starting to worry that he had no answer to give to such a good question.

Victor tried to jump, lost his balance and fell, hitting the ice with a loud smack. For several seconds all he was aware of was the pain.

“Victor!”

He raised his head from where he lay on the ice and stared up into Yuuri’s worried face.

“Victor?” he repeated, his voice trembling. “Are you… are you alright?”

He tried to get up and Yuuri came closer to help him to his feet.

Victor stood up and took stock of himself. “Just… just a few…” He moved his legs experimentally, “might be some bruises on my knees,” he finally said when he became certain that there were no tears in his pants and no bloodstains either.

“Thank goodness!” Yuuri let out a sigh. “Let’s try on the floor first, maybe?”

Victor stared at the metal blades on the ends of his feet and swallowed. “Yeah, that… sounds like a great idea.”

He wasn’t sure how he made it through practice. They practiced in the change room until Yuuri decided that Victor was ready for the ice. After that, it felt like all he did was fall.

By the end of the day, he could barely find the energy to go back to his apartment, where he collapsed on the bed, not wanting anything but rest.

He woke up several hours later, feeling like he was about to die of hunger. He ordered food delivery, afraid of letting someone see how badly bruised he was.

Yuuri worried. Victor’s progress was slower than he’d hoped. It was good progress, maybe faster than his own had been when he’d started out, but he could tell that Victor was impatient to move on to more interesting things.

Two days after his surprise demonstration, Victor revealed the truth behind his sudden improvement, “Why don’t I try the skating app? It helped me with the basic skating.”

Yuuri’s expression froze and he did his best to not react to the revelation that he’d only improved because of an app. “If you think it will help,” was all he managed to say, feeling useless.

What did it matter how Victor learned how to skate if he made it there in the end? It was only a small thing, he tried to tell himself. So he’d actually learned from an app and not from Yuuri, so what? There was nothing wrong with that.

A day later Victor mastered his first jump and Yuuri did his best to be happy about it. They were getting there, he told himself. They were making progress.

“Can you take a video of me please?” Victor asked, holding out his phone. “I want to post it on my Instagram.”

Yuuri took the phone and did as Victor asked. It wasn’t hard, really: all he had to do was point it at Victor and push a button.

“I’ll tag you too,” Victor offered as soon as Yuuri was done.

Yuuri watched in silence as Victor watched the video, gave a satisfied nod and prepared to post it.

“Sorry, I just realized I forgot to tag you last time. What’s your username?” Victor asked. And there it was – the question he’d been dreading.

Yuuri felt his face burn. “I don’t have one,” he managed in a low voice.

“What?”

“I don’t have one,” he repeated a little louder.

There was that look of surprise he hated so much. “Really? Why not? It’s so easy to set it up. I can show you how to do it.”

He backed away before he could realize that he was doing it. “It’s fine.” He tried to look like it was all no big deal, but he couldn’t. It _wasn’t_ fine. He didn’t want to deal with any of this.

Victor stared at him blankly.

 _He thinks I’m weird. He’s trying to work out how weird and if he should quit the competition before it gets going,_ Yuuri thought.

“I’ve never met anyone who doesn’t have an Instagram account before,” Victor admitted slowly. Yuuri imagined him backing away to the exit, but Victor remained where he was. Victor frowned, looking like he was turning both Yuuri’s and his own words in his head. “There isn’t anything wrong with that, though,” he said half to himself. “It’s just… unusual.” The words surprised him as much as they did Yuuri.

 _Good unusual, or bad unusual?_ Yuuri wondered, feeling embarrassed anyway.

“You don’t mind if I post photos of you, do you?” Victor’s eyes went big as his face took on a pleading expression. There was no way to say no to that face.

“I don’t mind,” Yuuri said as his heart skipped a beat.

“Awesome!” Victor clapped his hands. “I knew you’d say yes!”

For a moment, Yuuri was convinced that he could feel Victor’s joy. Was it just from seeing him so thrilled? Was Yuuri feeling his own happiness because of something? He didn’t know.

But the happiness was short-lived because Victor seemed to take Yuuri’s words as permission to record everything around him.

He wanted a video of the skating rink, a dozen photos of Yuuri doing everything he usually did, photos of the ice, a million photos of his skates and then a photo of himself lying on the ice with his shirt raised just a little to show off his stomach.

At first Victor’s need to take so many photos was funny, then a little odd and finally – very irritating.

“No, no,” Victor protested, reviewing what must have been the hundredth photo Yuuri took of him lying on the ice. “You need to get my feet in completely and you need to tilt the phone like this so the photo isn’t crooked. Ok?” He handed his phone back.

Yuuri just nodded.

It didn’t help that Victor’s phone buzzed and dinged every few minutes as messages poured in. Little icons of naked men popped up from time to time with suggestive offers. Yuuri suppressed the urge to swear as he hit ignore time and again.

He raised the phone, wishing he could smash it on the ice and watched Victor lie down on his side.

“Maybe it’ll be better, if I took my shirt off…” Victor mused aloud.

Yuuri felt the phone slip between his fingers and caught it before it could start falling.

“Oh, I know!” Victor exclaimed. “I can take a photo in just my underwear and a pair of skates on!”

The phone tumbled down and Yuuri had to make a dive to rescue it before it could hit the ice.

“Don’t worry about it!” Victor called out nonchalantly. “The case is indestructible!”

Yuuri bit back a swearword and held the phone up. _Concentrate,_ he told himself and stepped forward. He had to remember all of Victor’s instructions so he went through them like a checklist.

_Get him in completely… check._

_Make sure he’s not crooked… check._

_Check that his hair…_

Victor’s hand trailed up his stomach and raised his shirt just enough to show his skin.

Yuuri clicked the button. Then he set the phone on one of the boards and turned around to leave. He couldn’t take any more of this.

Victor sat in a tub full of hot water and swiped through the photos he’d posted. The first one showed Yuuri out on the ice. There was a gentle smile on his face and a happy glow in his eyes. The second one showed him tying the laces of his skates. It was a very good photo. He’d picked the perfect filter for it and the colours had turned out soft.

Next was a video. “Hello, everyone!” Victor watched himself give a happy wave to the camera. “Since I’ve been getting all these questions about my skating rink, I thought I’d give everyone a little tour. I’m here with Yuuri today! Say hi, Yuuri!” He turned the phone and Yuuri’s face appeared.

“Hello, everyone.” The greeting sounded a little forced, but then – the boy wasn’t used to being recorded like this.

“Yuuri is now my coach!” The Victor in the video pressed his cheek against Yuuri’s. “He’s been teaching me how to skate!”

Victor listened to himself explain his training schedule and closed his eyes. Yes, the video had turned out perfectly. He let it play until the end and swiped to the next photo.

This one had been tricky: he’d spent forever trying to capture a good shot of what he called Yuuri’s “coach mode”.

Finally came the best photo of them all: he lay on the ice with a knowing look on his face, showing the world that Victor Nikiforov had already conquered the rink. It was perfect. If a professional photography studio had shot this, they wouldn’t have done it better.

Well, maybe a little better. Maybe they would’ve found an even better pose.

He posted them all one by one and held his breath.

The likes poured in at a record-breaking speed. And the comments.

_You two are so cute!_

_Oh my GOD! Yuuri is a HOTTIE!_

_Ahh! Victor! Take me!_

_Victor, I love you!!!_

_Victor, you’re a GOD!_

A smile spread slowly across his face as he drank the comments in. The photo of him on the ice was a big hit, just as he’d predicted it would be.

 _Yuuri and Victor are a superhot duo!_ Someone else wrote.

Five minutes later a big online fight broke out over which of them was better-looking. Victor followed the argument for a bit, but got bored with it rather quickly.

As he went to bed that night a thought slipped into his mind unbidden. _This would’ve been a lot more fun if Yuuri had an Instagram account._

Yuuri spent a long time writing in his journal. Several years ago he’d discovered that it helped to get over his frustrations if he wrote them down, so he wrote them down now.

An hour later he stopped and let out a long sigh. He closed his journal and prepared for bed.

When morning dawned and he opened his journal to check his schedule for the day, his own words leapt off the paper at him.

_Self-obsessed._

_Attention-seeking._

He closed his eyes, feeling embarrassed. Victor was a model, so, of course, he got really hung up on making sure he looked good in his photos. That was his job, after all. And if he hadn’t liked attention, he would’ve picked a different line of work.

Yuuri didn’t dare read what else he’d written down about Victor.

He’d been tired last night, that was all it was. Just tired.

Everything was going to be fine, he tried to tell himself. He was just overreacting, that’s all.

He went through his usual morning routine, trying to concentrate only on getting ready and to leave no room for thoughts about Victor or how today’s training will go.

By the time he got the skating rink. He was almost convinced that everything would be okay. He felt his heart fill with optimism. It was only a little bit, but it was enough.

Everything was going to be fine, he told himself as he got to the change room.

As soon as he opened the door, he found Victor standing by the lockers with a big grin on his face.

“Guess what?” he exclaimed, not bothering even with a “hello” or “good morning.” “That photo you took of me yesterday broke the record for the most likes!” He almost pounced on Yuuri. “Can you take another one of me, please? That almost naked one I talked about yesterday?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In this version of Skating with the Stars, the competing pairs will get a theme for each competition. What themes would you like to see? Feel free to leave suggestions in the comments!


	3. A Coach

Yuuri hated Victor. It took about a week of social media madness to secure Yuuri in this opinion about his partner and when it occurred to him (after an especially trying day), he felt particularly miserable.

He hated his partner and he hated himself for agreeing to participate in this disaster of a show. And it was going to be a disaster, there was no doubt about it. Victor spent too much of his practice time trying to get something to post on Instagram to actually make any progress with his skating.

Yuuri tried to think of a polite way to bring this up, but never found the chance to do it.

All they had to do was lose the first round and then he could go back to being figure skater Yuuri Katsuki, too busy competing to care about what silly comments the world left on what photo.

He longed for those peaceful days when he could decide what he would do next on his own. He wanted it to be just him and his coach discussing skating routines and what element would work best where, not what type of post got the most notes.

Yuuri had tried to listen to Victor’s explanations, but gave up after the second time. He didn’t know what to say and he didn’t care about what Victor had said to him.

“Why does it matter?” Yuuri asked one morning, interrupting Victor just as he got into the topic of which angle was the best for photos.

For a few moments, the question left Victor speechless. “Why… does it matter?” he repeated as if the words were completely foreign to him. “If you get a lot of likes, then you’ll be popular!”

There was a short pause as Yuuri considered this answer. “So?” he finally prompted.

“Isn’t that what everyone wants?” The question sounded like it could’ve been rhetorical, but Yuuri wasn’t sure.

“I don’t,” he answered, just in case he’d been expected to.

Victor deflated. “You… don’t? What about all that…” he gestured vaguely, “…skating and… competing?”

“I don’t compete to be popular!” Yuuri protested indignantly.

“Of course not!” Victor agreed. “But… don’t you want all the fans to be cheering for you?” He joined his hands as he let his imagination run wild. “You go out on the skating rink as they announce your name and the audience is chanting “Yuuri! Yuuri!” and you do a little bow, and you know that they all want you to win!”

Yuuri listened with his mouth open, but when Victor looked at him, seeking some kind of agreement, Yuuri merely gave a sad shake of his head. “No, that… that never happens in real life.” _It definitely would never happen to me._

Victor looked heartbroken at those words, as if Yuuri had just forbidden him from doing anything fun ever again. “Really? It doesn’t happen to anyone?”

“Not really,” Yuuri admitted. “Some skaters get more people cheering for them, but not… like that.”

Victor was silent as he digested this.

Yuuri wondered if Victor would back out now. A part of him was hurt by the idea while most of him got hopeful. If Victor gave up on the whole idea, then it would all be over and he would have nothing to worry about.

“Well…” Victor began, setting his phone down on the boards. “I guess we’ll just have to change all that.” He winked.

This response irritated Yuuri, but irritation was soon replaced by guilt that he felt this way about someone else.

“What are we learning today?” Victor asked and Yuuri had to bite back the temptation to say something awful.

“How about spins?” Yuuri offered.

“Sounds good to me.”

Practice ended and Victor returned to monitoring how well all his posts were doing. He sat in the change room with his phone in his hand and read over the latest comments.

Yuuri’s locker banged closed and Victor was suddenly very aware of the skater’s presence. He raised his eyes slowly from his phone and watched Yuuri put his skates away.

Without really thinking about it, he opened the Love Alarm app again and watched the circle go round and round.

 _He hates me,_ Victor thought for what must’ve been the hundredth time. _He really hates me! I can’t believe it! There is someone in this world who hates me and they’re my partner in a reality show!_

He bit his lip. He’d never been hated before. Everyone loved him! How could someone hate him, anyway? He tried to think back to how it had all started, but when _had_ it started?

 _We got off on the wrong foot,_ he decided. That was all it was. He just simply needed to put things right and everything would be fixed. For that he needed…

“Yuuri, let’s go out for a drink,” he suggested. “I know a good place nearby,” he added, hoping Yuuri would feel more inclined to go if he learned about it.

Yuuri froze, as if the question had startled him. For a while he was silent and Victor began to fear that Yuuri would say no, but then he turned around and nodded. “Let’s.” There was a gentle look on his face.

Victor had a sudden surge of confidence. He would take Yuuri to that expensive bar. They’d have a drink or two, then maybe dinner and end the evening with hot sex in Victor’s apartment. Or Yuuri’s, he didn’t really care which.

He opened his mouth to say something clever and charming, but no words came to mind.

Yuuri continued staring at him.

Everything inside Victor panicked and wanted to run for it. After what felt like an eternity passed, he managed a brittle smile. “Great!”

It felt unusual to leave the skating rink with someone. Victor led the way to the parking lot where he’d left his car. For a moment, he caught a frown passing over Yuuri’s face, but before he could ask if something was wrong, it was gone and Victor dismissed it from his mind.

He settled into the driver’s seat and typed the address of the restaurant into his phone. When he reclined in his seat to look over at Yuuri there was an odd moment when he couldn’t help but think about how nice it all felt.

Yuuri gave him a little smile. “Shall we?”

Victor’s eyes lingered on the man’s lips for several seconds. “Yes.”

He started the engine and drove out of the parking lot.

As he concentrated on the instructions the GPS was giving him, it struck him how grateful he was to it for filling the car with the sound of its voice. Much to his embarrassment, he didn’t know what to talk about to Yuuri.

Yuuri sat without saying a word, his hands folded over the bag on his lap.

Victor felt the need to say something. It weighed heavier on him with every passing second until he was sure he would blurt out something very stupid. “Have you been living in Detroit long?” As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he felt something loosen in his chest.

“Almost ten years,” Yuuri replied. “What about you?”

“I don’t live in Detroit,” Victor admitted. “I came here from New York.”

“Oh.”

A long silence stretched out after those words. Now what? Victor searched his brain for something else to say. He was becoming painfully aware with every passing second of just how few things they had in common with each other.

“And… uh… where did you live before that?” he managed at last.

“Japan,” came Yuuri’s reply.

Victor threw a quick glance at him. “Wow! Japan! That’s so cool!” He tried to think of something else to add. “And… far.” If someone had picked that moment to show him a map of the world, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to find Japan on it. But it was far from Detroit, right? He’d heard that it was far from America.

“Yeah…” Yuuri said noncommittally. Victor chose to take that as confirmation that Japan really _was_ far. “I wish it was closer,” he admitted in a low voice.

Victor was lost again. “So you could see your family more often?” he tried.

“Yeah.”

A long and thoughtful silence followed as Victor tried to think of the correct response to that. He didn’t get along with his family so them being far away never bothered him. It wasn’t that they were terrible people. He just tended to get into arguments with his brothers as well as his sisters and his parents still thought that modelling wasn’t something people should turn into careers. They even got into arguments about it over texts and phone calls.

But Yuuri had a wistful look on his face that Victor never got when he thought of his family.

A car behind him honked and Victor realized with a start that he’d been staring at Yuuri for so long that he’d missed the moment when the red light turned green. He did his best to focus on the road instead.

Detroit wasn’t anything like New York. It didn’t have as much traffic, for a start. Every morning and every evening, without fail, most of New York would turn into one giant parking lot as cars on the roads struggled to get anywhere. He’d only been in one traffic jam in Detroit so far and it hadn’t been half as bad. It was the only example he could think of where Detroit was better than New York. Everything else…

“Go 100 yards and the destination will be on your right,” the GPS chimed in.

Victor peered out of the window as he slowed down.

Every bar and restaurant the app had recommended had been a disappointment so far, except this one. There was a special Friday night event they hosted that he’d particularly enjoyed. It included almost completely naked men and –

“Are we going to Sweaty Betty’s?” Yuuri asked, looking out of the window and then back at Victor.

The big illuminated sign that boasted naked dancers flashed right behind him, making Yuuri look even more innocent than usual.

Victor nodded. “Yep! They have really good drinks and it’s really nice inside.” The app had promised a sexy, intimate atmosphere and it hadn’t lied. Victor was about to ask Yuuri if he’d ever been and stopped himself. Of course he hadn’t! One look at that innocent face was enough to know.

 _Good thing it’s Tuesday,_ Victor thought. _Otherwise, I suspect you would’ve gotten the shock of your life._

He parked out in the street, using an app to pay for two hours and climbed out of the car.

Yuuri stood with his hands in his pocket, looking uncomfortable.

“Let’s go,” Victor led the way to the door. As he opened it, he caught Yuuri throw a quick glance at the “naked dancers” sign, colour and step inside.

_So innocent._

Victor led the way up to the bar where he claimed one of the chairs with the ease of a regular customer.

Remembering a movie he’d seen once, Victor pulled the chair out for Yuuri. He couldn’t help the wave of pride that came over him when he saw the look of pleased surprise on Yuuri’s face.

The barman showed up soon after to take their orders. Victor asked for a shot of vodka and watched with a smile as Yuuri spent a long time unable to decide what to order.

“Vodka,” he finally managed.

Something inside Victor glowed at this, as if he’d won a competition of some kind.

“So… do you come here often?” Yuuri asked, his eyes on the barman. He looked worried, as if he was scared that any minute now the barman would leap onto one of the tables, take his clothes off and dance.

The thought almost made Victor laugh. He caught himself just in time, remembering that Yuuri had asked him a question. “Yeah… The last few evenings. Luckily, I found this place last Friday and got to see some of the dancing.”

Yuuri’s cheeks reddened and Victor suppressed the urge to tease him about it. “That’s um… lucky…” he managed at last.

The barman brought their drinks and Victor downed his shot in one go. He shifted his chair closer to Yuuri and whispered, “We should order something to eat.”

“Yeah…” Yuuri stared down at his drink. He made no movement to pick it up and Victor wondered if this was his first time drinking alcohol. Was it possible that Yuuri was that innocent? Could _anyone_ be that innocent?

He called the barman over and ordered for both of them. The place served all kinds of snacks. He’d ordered pickles when he’d come on Friday and then laughed about it afterwards.

Yuuri waited for the snacks to arrive before downing his shot.

“Maybe we should order cocktails,” Victor noted. His head was spinning and he wanted to laugh at himself for getting drunk after just one shot.

“If you want,” Yuuri half-agreed. He kept throwing worried glances around himself. Victor tried to think of something reassuring to say, but all he could think about were those dancers.

“You should come with me next Friday,” Victor said, leaning close to Yuuri. “The dancers here are very good,” he whispered.

Yuuri threw a frightened look at him as a blush spread over his cheeks. He really was very handsome. His features were delicate and he had a very good figure. And a very kissable mouth…

Victor felt himself lean closer as his eyes took in Yuuri’s pale lips and then his eyelashes. Yuuri was looking right at him, sitting absolutely still and Victor felt as if he was falling.

Ding!

Victor sat bolt upright and Yuuri turned away.

It took Victor several seconds to realize that his phone had made that sound and another half a minute to remember that he’d put it on the table to his left.

Who was it now?

The screen showed a little heart and two words: Love Alarm.

 _Gotcha!_ Victor thought, infinitely pleased with himself.

Yuuri threw a quick glance at him. “Message from a friend?” he asked, shifting away a little and pretending to be interested in his glass.

“Sort of,” Victor admitted and turned away from his phone to show that it wasn’t important. He propped up his chin with his hand. “You didn’t tell me what you thought of coming here with me on Friday,” he reminded Yuuri. One of his hands was resting on the bar and Victor reached out to gently take it with his own.

“What I think?” Yuuri repeated, staring down at their joined hands. “I… I don’t think I can…”

Victor decided not to push it. “Think about it. Let me know if you change your mind.”

“Ok,” Yuuri whispered.

They ordered another round of drinks and Victor shifted his chair a little closer to Yuuri’s.

He found himself studying Yuuri even more closely now, daydreaming about slipping his fingers through Yuuri’s hair. He wondered if it was soft.

He could feel himself start to get excited and impatient. Yuuri liked him, didn’t he? This ought to be easy. He shifted even closer. “So, what do you do in your free time?”

Yuuri met his eye with that clear, innocent expression of his. “Not much,” he admitted. “Skating and training takes up most of my time.”

“You must go out with friends sometime,” Victor suggested.

“Sometimes,” Yuuri agreed.

“Do you have a boyfriend?” The question was very blunt, but Victor was filled with a need to know before he got carried away and made a fool of himself.

“I don’t,” Yuuri admitted. “What about you?”

“Me neither.” He laughed. “I think I’m a little addicted to the HotDate app, to be honest.”

There was that innocent look again that told him that Yuuri had no idea what Victor was talking about.

“Oh, you know…” he tried to sound off-hand about it. “Do you want a hot date tonight?” he asked in a deep voice. “Yes, of course,” he answered himself in his regular one. “And you get this long list of hot men to choose from.”

“Oh.” Yuuri stared down at his hands.

Victor, who’d been expecting to see him blush, was surprised to see that he didn’t. “There’s all kinds of options, but most of them have to do with having sex,” Victor added, just in case it wasn’t obvious.

“I see,” Yuuri turned away and Victor missed the expression on his face.

What was Yuuri feeling now? More embarrassment? He waited for Yuuri to say something, anything, but the conversation seemed to have died there.

If only Yuuri was one of the men listed in the app! Victor suddenly thought. It was an odd thought and he had to suppress the urge to giggle at it, but then – why _not_ Yuuri? He was definitely hot enough for it!

Victor’s eyes passed over Yuuri as he made up a profile for him to use in the app. Good with his hands, maybe. Gentle and into aftercare, perhaps.

Yuuri pulled a hand through his hair and turned to face Victor again. He was chewing his lip as if something was making him nervous.

Victor’s mind filled with all kinds of images, made from his actual memories with Yuuri’s face added in like a special effect from a movie.

“Did you want to order anything else?” Yuuri asked, his hands joining on the table.

Victor leaned forward to brush Yuuri’s hair aside. His hand settled on Yuuri’s shoulder.

Yuuri’s expression turned to one of surprise.

“There is something that I want,” Victor admitted in a whisper.

“I’ll call the barman over, then?” Yuuri turned his head to see where the man had gone.

“No, it’s not something on the menu,” Victor clarified. _Although I wish it was!_

Yuuri met his eye, looking puzzled. Slowly understanding dawned. “It’s over there,” he said, nodding at something behind Victor.

Victor turned around and then back to look at Yuuri. “What?”

“The washroom,” Yuuri explained. “Isn’t that what you want? I can see the little sign for it on the wall behind you.”

Victor opened his mouth to say that, no, actually what he wanted wasn’t over there and changed his mind. “I’ll be right back,” he promised and slipped off his chair.

He used this chance to admire his reflection in the mirror, fix his hair and then give himself a satisfied nod. No one could resist this.

On his way back he paused for a moment to take in Yuuri’s figure. He looked so lonely as he sat by the bar!

Victor donned his best smile and strode over to join him. “Did you miss me?”

But Yuuri didn’t seem to have heard the question. “I need to go back,” he said. “It’s getting late and I’m worried I’ll fall asleep any minute now.” Victor’s dismay must’ve shown on his face because he apologized.

“I thought we’d go back to my place and spend the night together,” Victor admitted.

Yuuri looked him straight in the eye and said, “Isn’t that what you have the HotDate app for?”

Victor was speechless. What could he possibly say to something like that?

“Don’t worry about me,” Yuuri insisted. “I can walk home from here. Oh and,” he added as he turned away, “I already paid for both of us, so don’t let the barman charge you twice.”

And he walked out with the calmest air imaginable.

Victor stared at him, feeling as if he’d just been slapped and unable to understand what had just happened.

Yuuri went out for a run. He was too angry to do anything else. He did his best to block out all his thoughts, afraid that if he didn’t he would start screaming.

He took one of the streets that went along the side of a park and thought about the trees. He told himself that he was very fascinated with how they grew and then cast his mind back to the mornings he’d spent on this path among the trees when the fog rolled in and the sun was just starting to rise. Those mornings were always so peaceful.

He wasn’t sure he could face Victor again without punching him right in the face. He’d come close several times, especially when he’d asked for that photo of himself naked on the ice. He’d managed to keep from doing it then, but he wasn’t so sure about now. It had been almost impossible to resist the temptation in the bar.

What was he supposed to do now?

He felt as if someone had removed the ground from beneath his feet and he needed to find something else to stand on. He could feel panic rising in his chest, threatening to overwhelm him.

He stopped and took a deep breath. One step at a time. First he would finish this jog. Then he would go home, sleep and, maybe, everything would be much better in the morning.

He tried to concentrate on that and ignore the voice in the back of his mind that kept telling him that it wouldn’t work, that it was all hopeless and that he was stuck in the worst situation imaginable. He turned around and went back, this time trying his best to think about nothing but the shower he would take as soon as he got home.

He must’ve been very tired, because despite all his fears and worries the moment he lay down on his bed he fell asleep. For several blissful hours he wasn’t aware of anything, but then morning dawned again and it came back to him all at once.

He opened his eyes and let out a loud groan.

It took a great deal of effort to climb out of bed and even more effort to go to the bathroom. That morning his usual routine felt like he was climbing a steep mountain every step of the way.

 _I can’t keep doing this,_ Yuuri thought.

He froze and met his reflection’s eye in the mirror. He really _couldn’t_ keep doing this. Maybe it was time to admit as much to Victor and they would agree to drop out of the competition.

Yes, that was much better than forcing himself to try to win when he didn’t want to compete at all.

He felt terrible, like someone who’d broken a promise he’d made. At least it was better than pretending that he wanted to be there, he told himself. They would go their separate ways and everything would be alright.

But when he arrived at the skating rink he found that Victor wasn’t alone. An elderly man stood at the boards with a displeased expression on his face.

“Good morning, Mr. Feltsman,” Yuuri said politely, recognizing the man at once and feeling terror creep up his spine.

The man turned to face him and his expression changed. The frown disappeared and a pleased one took its place. The change was so unexpected that it caught Yuuri completely by surprise. “Good morning, Yuuri.”

The man was Yakov Feltsman – a coach who had trained many of Russia’s skaters. He’d moved to America several years ago to train the skaters there. All kinds of rumours circulated in the skating world about him, but Yuuri had only heard snippets here and there, so he had no idea what was generally thought of him. Yuuri himself had seen the coach plenty of times at competitions around the world and knew that he was the man who’d trained many of the best figure skaters in the world. The two of them had never exchanged a single word, mostly because Yuuri was intimidated by the old man.

This was their first real conversation, Yuuri realized and wondered if there was something he ought to say at this moment.

“I was just explaining to Victor that there’s been a mix-up,” Yakov said, jumping straight to the point. “I’m supposed to come train you for three hours every day, but, for some reason, no one bothered to tell me where I’m supposed to go.” He scowled.

Yuuri fidgeted. Had he done something wrong? Had the organizers expected the figure skaters to contact the coaches and work out their training schedules? But he hadn’t even known _who_ heir coaches would be!

“Of course, that’s what happens when you rely on computers to manage people, instead of talking to them directly like normal human beings,” Yakov growled. He studied Yuuri critically. “Chin up, Yuuri. It’s not _your_ fault.”

Yuuri didn’t know what to say to that.

“Alright, enough talking. Show me what you’ve been working on.”

Yuuri’s heart sank at the sound of those words. He was convinced that they should’ve been much further along by now. They were probably expected to have come up with their first routine already and here he was – still teaching Victor how to skate!

“I can show you!” Victor announced happily. He went around the ice, showing how well he could skate forwards and backwards. Finally, his feet left the ice, showing the only jump Yuuri had managed to teach him so far. He stopped and raised his arms with a flourish. “Ta-da!”

Yakov looked as if Victor had just slapped him. “You _do_ realize that this is a competition in pairs, right?” He gave Yuuri an icy look. “Have you skated together at all?”

Yuuri felt his knees tremble. “Not really,” he admitted.

The coach gave a heavy sigh. “Of course you haven’t! Why am I even surprised? This is _exactly_ what happens when a singles skater ends up filling the coach’s role.” He shook his head.

Yuuri felt like a student told off for misbehaving.

Yakov clapped Yuuri on the shoulder. Yuuri looked up to see a half-smile on the man’s face. “Go out on the ice,” he said gently. “You’ve made a good start with the basics. I’ll take over from here.”

Yuuri’s throat was dry. “Thank you,” he managed and went to join Victor.

“Good morning,” Victor said in a low voice as soon as Yuuri was next to him.

Only then did Yuuri remember that he’d intended to quit. The meek “good morning” echoed in his head over and over again and he felt his resolve weaken. Maybe he ought to give Victor a chance. Maybe he’d seen Yuuri’s reaction last night and understood.

“Good morning,” Yuuri replied and felt the corners of his mouth rise on their own.

“Let’s start then, shall we?” Yakov cut in. “I’m going to put some music on. I want you to go around the rink together. Follow the music. Don’t bother with any elements. Just go around.”

“Yes, coach!” they said almost together and laughed.

Yuuri felt himself relax.

Yakov put a slow piece on and they took each other’s hands.

It sounded easy, but it didn’t take long for them to realize that the exercise wasn’t as simple as it seemed. Yuuri spent the first two circles watching Victor’s feet and doing his best to avoid tripping over them. On the third circle he realized that he’d been so focused on not falling over that he’d completely ignored the music, which, he was certain, Yakov had put on for them to follow and not just to fill the silence.

“Stop staring at your feet!” Yakov barked.

Victor mumbled something under his breath. Yuuri didn’t catch a single word, but suspected that it was mostly swearing.

Yuuri forced himself to look ahead, but they only went a few metres before they knocked into each other. A low swearword rang out in the air followed by a smack as they both landed on the ice.

Yuuri got up first. He held his hands out to Victor and watched the man swear as he struggled to get up again. His feet tried to go in opposite directions and Yuuri had to knock one of them with his own shoe to keep Victor from doing the splits on the ice.

“Thanks,” Victor mumbled dryly once he was up at last.

Yuuri merely nodded, uncertain of how he ought to respond.

A million falls later they finally managed to make one lap without knocking into each other.

Yuuri could feel himself getting into the rhythm of it. All he had to do was follow it and make sure Victor followed it too and they could do this.

His skate caught on Victor’s again and they flailed for several seconds before losing their balance and surrendering to gravity.

Victor swore, sounding close to despair.

 _This is how it is,_ Yuuri thought. _Sometimes you end up spending a whole day falling and, if you’re lucky, it’s not too long before you figure out what you’re doing wrong._ He gave a loud sigh and pulled Victor to his feet. _You don’t always have good days. Can’t you see that now?_

Two more laps, three…

They weren’t doing anything special, barely even moving to the music and, yet, they couldn’t even get that much right.

“Move your feet to the music,” Yuuri whispered. “If we both move to the music, we have a better chance of not knocking each other over.”

“Right,” Victor nodded.

Yuuri moved his right leg before it occurred to him that Victor was merely agreeing with him.

“And… left?” Victor suggested, a note of amusement in his voice.

There was no point in arguing now, so Yuuri did as was suggested.

Right, left, right, left… It was silly, but at least it worked. Following the rhythm was easy enough and, anyway, Yakov had told them that they didn’t need to do any elements. They went around twice and Victor stopped and let Yuuri go.

“Why did you stop?” Yakov demanded.

“We did it, didn’t we?” Victor asked with the air of someone explaining the obvious.

“You don’t stop unless I tell you to,” Yakov declared blankly. “Now go back to what you were doing!”

Yuuri turned around and returned to Victor’s side, taking his hands and pulling him in the opposite direction.

Victor pouted and muttered something that sounded a lot like, “This is stupid.”

Yuuri was silent. He had a strong suspicion that he knew where this was headed. His suspicions were confirmed when after ten laps Yakov changed the music to something faster. They sped up.

Two laps later the music was slower.

“This is really annoying,” Victor muttered. “Does he expect us to do this all day long?”

“Probably,” Yuuri replied.

Victor turned to stare at him as if he’d forgotten that Yuuri was there.

It was hard not to laugh, or to say something like “this is what training is really like, what did you expect”. Instead, he did his best to keep his expression neutral and focus on the music.

Faster.

Slower.

“If only someone was recording this. Oh! I know!” Victor released Yuuri and rushed across the ice to Yakov. “Yakov!” he exclaimed, bursting with excitement.

“What are you doing?” Yakov demanded. “Go back to skating!”

“I will! I will!” Victor promised. “I was just wondering if you could record us skating for the blog? The fans will be so happy to see this!” He held his phone out to Yakov.

The old coach snatched it out of his hands and stuck it into the inside pocket of his jacket. “Go back to skating!” he boomed.

“What? Why? That’s my phone –”

“I said: get back to skating!” Yakov’s voice boomed over Yuuri’s. “This is your chance to learn how to skate so that you don’t embarrass me or Yuuri in front of millions of people. I don’t have time for your internet fans!”

“But –”

The expression on Yakov’s face looked strong enough to burn through him.

Victor turned away and returned to Yuuri, muttering under his breath. He went silent as soon as Yuuri was within earshot and took his hands without looking at him.

 _He’s going to quit after this,_ Yuuri suddenly thought. His heart leap happily in his chest. His sufferings were almost over!

Afraid of giving himself away, Yuuri stifled the urge to celebrate and opted instead for looking like he was very focused on their skating. His mind, meanwhile, churned away, going through all the possibilities.

Victor would quit and Yuuri would be free to do something else with his time. What would he do? Would Yakov agree to make a program for him? He could even leave the choice of music to the old coach.

He had to stop himself there – he could feel himself getting carried away as he imagined in vivid detail how well the program would suit him and how it would pull him out of his slump.

A part of him was disappointed that Victor didn’t give up right away, but he squashed that thought as quickly as it came.

They went around until Yakov announced that his time with them was over, at which point they released each other, not bothering to disguise their relief. “You need to keep going,” Yakov told them.

Victor held out his hand. “Can I have my phone back, please?”

Yakov pulled it grudgingly out of his pocket. “I don’t want to see you with this on the ice ever again, got it?”

Victor nodded and Yuuri wondered how long it would last.

He wasn’t surprised when, as soon as he was sure that Yakov was gone, Victor buried himself in his phone.

Yuuri shook his head and skated away. He wasn’t going to have this battle again. Determined to ignore what Victor was doing, Yuuri decided to practice his jumps. He went around the ice, falling into the second half of his free skate without thinking. When he reached the quad flip he was supposed to have done in his program a wave of sadness came over him, reminding him very vividly of how he’d felt the day after the World Championships.

All his doubts surfaced again and he didn’t jump, instead continuing on to do the spin in the very end. When he came out of the spin he felt close to tears.

The first thing he saw as soon as he stopped was Victor holding up his phone with a stupid grin on his face and recording everything Yuuri was doing.

Yuuri charged across the ice, snatched the phone out of Victor’s hand and explode, “Don’t you have anything else to do?”

“But – but, Yuuri, you were so –”

“You should ask for people’s permission, if you’re going to record them.” He stopped the recording and fiddled with the phone until he figured out how to delete the video.

“But what about our daily update?” Victor protested.

“I know this is just a game to you,” Yuuri shot back, “but if you’re not going to take this seriously, then I don’t see why you even bother!” He handed the phone back to Victor. “We need to keep practicing,” he declared and added, “or did you think you were done for the day?” He’d half-hoped that Victor would admit defeat then, but – much to his dismay – Victor agreed and set his phone aside.

They practiced for a long time after that. The whole time Yuuri couldn’t shake the feeling that Victor was trying to outlast him on the ice and he became determined that he wouldn’t be the one to fold. He was the figure skater, so of course he had the stamina for something as simple as going around in circles on the ice.

Eventually, Victor gave in, laughing as if he’d made a great joke as he admitted defeat. “You sure have a lot of stamina!” he exclaimed. For some reason, he winked as he said those words.

Yuuri wondered if he was seeing things or if it had just been a very slow blink. “I need to have a lot of stamina,” he said in a cold voice. “Otherwise I wouldn’t be able to compete.”

“Of course, of course,” Victor agreed. For a moment, he looked like he was about to add something and then he shook his head. “Do you want to go for a drink?”

“No.” Yuuri made a show of checking his watch. “I want to train for a little longer.”

“Oh, come on!” Victor exclaimed breezily. “It’s just a _show_. You’re not going to win a medal from it. You need to relax and have some fun!”

Yuuri turned away. “I _want_ to,” he repeated firmly.

“Suit yourself. After all that, I know I could use a massage.” He’d said the word so suggestively that Yuuri had no doubts as to what he really meant.

He said nothing, waiting for Victor to leave before making a big circle out on the ice.

He couldn’t explain why he settled into his free skate again, but it gave him a strong sense of relief to be able to skate it. He moved over the ice without thinking, but when he reached the quad flip he faltered and fell.

 _Again,_ he told himself.

He circled the rink, returned to the same spot and leapt. He fumbled the landing and it didn’t come out as clean as it should’ve, so he went around again.

He was exhausted and he knew it, but he had to get this right. He needed to know that he could still do this. He _needed_ this.

_Again._

It wasn’t until he fell hard that he gave up and left the ice, upset that he had failed yet again just like he’d failed all season long.

Night descended over Detroit and Victor found himself wishing it was Friday. He stumbled down the streets of Detroit, a little drunk and very, very angry. Why didn’t the city have any… what was that word again?

He stumbled a little as the pavement curved up before him, trying to trip him up. “Stupid… city,” he muttered, swaying forward dangerously. “Stupid… side… walk.” For some reason, he liked the sound of the word “stupid” and stumbled the whole way back to his apartment, calling everything stupid on the way.

“Stupid Yuuri…” he muttered as he continued down the pathway that led to his apartment building.

Stupid Yuuri! Why wasn’t he like everyone else? Why didn’t he have Instagram, or Facebook, or the HotDate app? Why didn’t he post photos of himself everywhere just like Victor did?

Victor reached the front door and pulled out his keys when a memory played itself before his eyes. He’d never seen Yuuri take his phone out, but when he’d been deleting the video Victor had taken of him, he’d navigated through the menus with ease.

Was it with ease?

Victor unlocked the front door and crossed the lobby, making straight for the elevators.

He tried to remember what he’d been thinking about, but the elevator doors opened, revealing walls lined with mirrors, making it impossible to focus on anything other than his reflection. He spent the whole journey to his floor winking at it.

When the elevator stopped and opened on his floor, he bowed to his reflections, thanked them and stepped out. He frowned, uncertain for a moment which way he ought to go. Was it left or was it right?

L- Right.

He made a step, as if expecting something to happen, but when nothing did he took courage from the fact and kept going. Step. Step.

He needed a bath and then a boy.

He grinned.

Baths and boys were best things in the world. He raised his hand, as if he was holding a glass and announced, “To baths and boys! To… baths _with_ boys!” He giggled and pretended to down the contents of his imaginary glass.

The night did, indeed, end with a bath and a boy, and, for a little while, he forgot all about his troubles.

When morning dawned he woke up cursing himself for getting drunk the night before. He knew it was a bad idea and several times he’d vowed to himself that he wouldn’t do it ever again, but still time and again it would keep happening.

He rolled over in his bed and buried his face in the pillow, willing his headache to stop.

Why did he have to get up? Why did he have to go to practice? Why did he have to be paired with Yuuri?

This last part may not be that bad, he had to admit, Yuuri’s face appeared in his mind and he thought again about kissing it.

Hadn’t his Love Alarm gone off two days ago when they’d had drinks together? That could only mean one thing: Yuuri was into him. Maybe he was just playing hard to get.

Victor turned over onto his back and stared up at his ceiling.

He would win Yuuri over completely, he decided, get that boy to fall head over heels in love with him and then, fuelled by their love for each other, they would win Skating with the Stars!

He sat up and picked up his phone, checking if he got any new messages overnight. But there wasn’t anything interesting.

 _One day I’m going to wake up to loving texts from Yuuri,_ Victor decided. He propped his chin up with his hand and closed his eyes, letting his mind wander. Yuuri struck him as the kind of person who would send very endearing messages, the most endearing imaginable.

Victor’s heartbeat quickened and a warmth spread over his chest as if Yuuri _had_ sent him a very tender text. This pretend future was enough to get him out of bed and send him off on his morning routine.

The change room was blessedly empty when Yuuri came in. Even the lockers were all open and empty. Something that had been clenched in his chest released and he let out a deep sigh of relief. Victor wasn’t here. He wasn’t coming.

As he got ready and the change room continued to remain empty he felt hope rise in his chest. One day of proper training had been enough to put Victor off the whole competition. He wasn’t coming.

 _You don’t know that,_ he tried to tell himself, but he couldn’t stop mentally rejoicing.

Yuuri walked to the rink, trying to figure out a good way to bring up the idea of Yakov putting together a free skate for him.

The skating rink, like the change room was blissfully a Victor-free zone. He felt his heart soar. Everything would go back to how it should’ve been. He would return to competing and in a year, or maybe two he would laugh about this whole…

A door banged open behind him and he turned around to see Victor walk in. “Good morning! Sorry I’m late!”

By complete accident, Yuuri saw the scowl that crossed Yakov’s face. It had lasted less than a few seconds and then the coach regarded the model with a cool look. “You made it at last,” he grumbled. “Get out on the ice with Yuuri and repeat what you were doing yesterday.”

Victor joined Yuuri with a smile, as if he’d been asked to go to a party. “Good morning,” he whispered to Yuuri with a wink. He adjusted his hair and let his eyes trail down over Yuuri. “You look very beautiful this morning.”

It took all of Yuuri’s self-control to keep from swearing at the man in response. “Thank you.”

The music began to play and they circled the rink together. Yuuri knew there was no pulling out now. He had to get through all this somehow and just hope that they would be eliminated in the first round.

“How do you think I look this morning?” Victor asked.

Unless he couldn’t keep from strangling his partner before then, Yuuri mentally added to his previous thought.


	4. A Tale as Old as Time

That summer was endless. Afterwards, Yuuri often wondered how he’d survived it. Victor became more intolerable with every lesson. He asked Yuuri random questions about himself and then volunteered his own answers before Yuuri could get a chance to answer any of them. He skipped practice without any warning. Once he missed an entire week, convincing Yuuri that he’d given up, only to show up again, smiling widely and winking. Yuuri never bothered to ask for a reason and Victor didn’t volunteer one either.

Yakov berated Victor for his behaviour a few times before giving up, leading Yuuri to suspect that the coach was also hoping Victor would quit.

All this combined meant that when it came to putting together a routine for the first round they had to settle for something simple.

Victor and Yuuri listened to Yakov describe their routine. Once the coach finished, Victor frowned.

“That’s so boring!” he protested. “Why can’t we have some flashy elements? I know! I can throw Yuuri out one the ice! Or he can throw me.”

Yakov’s expression darkened. “I wouldn’t trust you to throw a ball, never mind one of the world’s top figure skaters!” Victor opened his mind to protest, but Yakov cut in before he could say anything, “Besides, it’s not as easy as you think. You don’t just “throw” someone and expect it to end well. You have to practice for many hours and for a long time before someone would trust you with their life.”

Yuuri nodded along. He certainly wasn’t prepared to toss Victor.

Victor pouted and shot Yuuri a look. “I _would_ trust you with my life,” he whispered.

Where had that come from? Yuuri remained silent, unable to think of how to react to that.

“But what about…” Victor frowned as he struggled for the right words, “…picking me up? Isn’t Yuuri going to pick me up at some point?”

“It’s called a lift,” Yakov told him in a voice that gave away just how close the coach was to his breaking point. “They also require lots of practice.”

“But they’re so easy!” Victor protested. “I mean: they should be easy for Yuuri to do.”

Yuuri watched Yakov struggle between shouting curses at Victor and giving a calm and collected response. After several seconds, the calm and collected response won. “We’ll start with this. If you skate it well, then I’ll consider adding one lift.”

Victor looked ready to argue, so Yuuri, having no desire to get stuck in this argument all morning, agreed for both of them.

“Good,” Yakov nodded. “Now go out on the ice.”

Yuuri took Victor’s hand and led him away, ignoring the man’s protestations.

Once they were out on the ice, he turned to Victor. “Listen,” he hissed, “this is just the starting version of the skate. No one’s – or almost no one’s – skate starts out looking exactly the way it will at the end. Everyone makes changes throughout, depending on what they decide works best.”

“Oh.” Victor’s expression brightened. “That’s alright then!”

Yuuri didn’t mention that normally he would come up with a routine as early as he could to give himself more time to practice it and to make any necessary changes. Each routine took a bit of trial and error to get it to a point he was satisfied with and then he would have to do many run-throughs to skate it right. And, even then, after all his hard work, after months spent perfecting each element, he would still go out on the ice in competitions and make mistakes. Sometimes it depended simply on his mood, sometimes there were elements that he couldn’t get right no matter how hard he tried. That was simply how things were and he knew that nothing could change that.

Victor didn’t understand these struggles. Maybe modelling was much easier, or maybe all the figure skating shows and competitions made skating look a lot easier than it actually was. Whatever the reason, Victor had obviously gone in with unrealistic expectations.

These thoughts passed through Yuuri’s mind as Yakov put the music on and they tried to figure out their starting position.

They had to start out facing each other, but, for some reason, Victor got hung up on exactly how far away they should stand.

The music began to play. They bowed to each other.

Victor stepped forward to take Yuuri’s hands just as Yuuri stepped forward to put one hand around Victor’s waist and their hands collided in mid-air.

“What are you doing?” Victor exclaimed. “Just take my hands!”

“No, I’m supposed to put one arm around you!”

The music kept playing as they struggled to figure out where their hands were supposed to go.

“Like this!” Yuuri exclaimed, catching Victor’s hands and placing them where he thought they ought to go.

The music stopped. Yakov’s voice carried over to them. “From the beginning!”

“They can always edit it out when they film us,” Victor said nonchalantly.

“No one edits bits out when recording figure skaters!” Yuuri snapped at him.

“They don’t?” Victor asked. He gave Yuuri a troubled look. “But what if we fall?”

“Then all the viewers will get to watch us fall and how we get up.” A thought occurred to him that made him laugh. “And if you swear, they might just catch a close-up of your face. No one will hear you, of course, but there are lots of people out there who can lip read.”

“Oh.” Victor looked troubled by the thought. “We’re not allowed to swear?” he asked after a long silence.

Yuuri hesitated before answering this question. “I don’t think the producers of the show care, but you might. Do you want fans to see you swear?”

Victor stared as if Yuuri had asked a complicated math question. “Does it… _Should_ I care? Everyone swears, so me swearing won’t make a difference, will it?”

“Probably not.” Yuuri shrugged. He’d always avoided it whenever possible. Celestino had once referred to it as unprofessional and the description had stuck with Yuuri ever since. But now, watching Victor’s response to his words, he was bracing himself for Victor to call his aversion to swearing old-fashioned. But even if he was, he didn’t want to hear Victor say it, as if hearing the words said aloud would make it worse somehow.

“Ready?” Yakov called, startling Yuuri out of his thoughts.

They scrambled to assume their initial positions again and Yuuri braced himself for a whole morning spent getting the first few seconds of the routine just right.

Time and again they struggled with the beginning until Yakov called them over and told them to get off the ice.

“We’ll do this in a dance studio,” he declared.

It didn’t take long for Yuuri to see that even having a routine to practice and even though it wasn’t coming along well, Victor still refused to attend practice regularly.

 _If he doesn’t come, then we won’t have a chance of doing well,_ Yuuri thought, but a part of him continued to feel irritated every time Victor skipped practice.

Days passed, bringing them ever closer to the filming date of the first round. This one was scheduled to be recorded ahead of the broadcasting date. The organizers had made it very clear that anyone who revealed any details would end up facing heavy fines. Victor had protested, but since he’d had his phone confiscated every time before practice he couldn’t do a thing about it.

The ratings for Skating with the Stars were nothing like anyone had expected. When the viewership figures came out one of the producers called the other one and congratulated her on choosing the right participants.

“What can I say? I have a nose for these things!”

And they both laughed.

It hadn’t occurred to either of them to wonder why so many more people were watching the show this time. Even if someone had asked the question, they would’ve said something like “our ads worked really well” and left it at that. Both were the kind of people who went through the numbers after a show was done, so neither of them was going to look for the answer just yet.

But there was a very good reason for the show’s popularity.

Yuuko Nishigori, long-time skating fan and Yuuri’s childhood friend, settled down in front of the TV as she set the stream up through her phone. She’d been looking forward to the new season of Skating with the Stars ever since the last one had finished and even more so when she found out that Yuuri himself would be in it. She’d messaged Yuuri about it as soon as she saw his name on the list of participants, but, for some reason she never got a reply.

 _He’s probably too busy training to reply,_ Yuuko decided. She hadn’t heard from him in years. She was sad that they’d grown apart, but she wasn’t going to hold it against Yuuri. She’d seen how well he skated and she knew how much effort it took to keep competing.

 _I just hope you take time to rest,_ Yuuko thought. _Training is important, but so is taking time off for yourself._

The screen changed to show the logo for Skating with the Stars and Yuuko set aside her worried for the moment.

Two hosts grinned at the camera. One of them was the host from the previous season, and the second one was a skater who had retired two years ago. Yuuko tried to remember what her name was.

“Hello, figure skating fans! Welcome to the first round of Skating with the Stars! Tonight we will introduce you to all of our contestants! We are your hosts – Steve Alexander and…”

“Irina Slutskaya!” the woman put in and laughed.

“ _That_ was her name!” Yuuko exclaimed.

Her family settled down restlessly around her. Her triplets crowded all around her, trying to find the best spot to watch from, while Takeshi went to the kitchen to prepare some snacks.

“We have an amazing round up of contestants this season!” Irina went on. “The best of the best, without a doubt! And, remember – after each episode becomes available for download, you have until the next episode to vote! All you need to do it open the MyTV app, go into the menu, pick vote, find Skating with the Stars and vote! Each episode the judges will give the pairs points based on how well they skated. The two pairs with the least points will be up for elimination, so remember – vote to save your favourite pair!” Both hosts exclaimed those last words together.

Yuuko listened to make sure that the rules hadn’t changed and nodded with satisfaction once the hosts finished speaking. Good it was going to work just like it had in the previous season. She wouldn’t get to vote for the winner until the last round. That meant that she wouldn’t get to vote for Yuuri until the very end, but that didn’t worry her.

“We’re ready!” the triplets announced, raising their phones in unison.

Axel, Lutz and Loop – her three wonderful girls were huge figure skating fans and Yuuri’s loyal supporters. They were the ones who kept her up to date on every time Yuuri’s name was mentioned in the press. Until now, there hadn’t been much, but with Yuuri’s partner having such an active presence in all social media, there was a lot to keep them occupied.

Yuuko still couldn’t believe this was happening. From Victor’s posts, it was very clear that he and Yuuri were exact opposites. How could they be skating together? And she found herself worrying.

Yuuri hadn’t always avoided everything and everyone. She could still remember a time when they’d actively texted each other, when Yuuri had an Instagram account. Admittedly, it was mostly filled with photos of dogs he’d met, but he hadn’t minded posting the odd photo of himself.

Now that account was gone and everything Yuuko saw of Yuuri was from press releases, or from competitions. At times, it was really hard to believe that the incredible figure skater had first learned how to skate side by side with her, here, in their little skating rink, in the small town of Hasetsu.

The first pair came out on the ice and, for a short while at least, Yuuko forgot about her worries and focused on them instead.

As each pair went out on the ice she found it harder to pick which one she liked best. A few of them were obviously still at the beginner level, but the others succeeded in standing out in one way or another. She felt excitement rise in her chest. This was going to be a great season!

And, of course, Yuuri and Victor were the last pair to go out on the ice. She held her breath as their names were called, feeling as if a whole eternity had passed before it was their turn.

The theme for the first round was Disney. Almost every pair picked one of the most popular songs, which Yuuko thought was unfortunate. It would’ve been so much better if they’d tried to be original.

A single glance was enough for Yuuko to guess what Yuuri and Victor would be skating to. Yuuri was in a yellow dress while Victor was in a blue coat. He had a pair of horns on his head and a wig that made him almost unrecognizable.

The triplets let out an excited cheer and scooted over to the TV. Takeshi came out of the kitchen and joined Yuuko at the table. They exchanged a smile.

The camera showed them circling the rink as an audience cheered them on. Yuuri’s eyes were lowered. They stopped and Yuuri raised his head to give the audience a smile.

Yuuko felt her heart fall. She knew Yuuri well enough to see that the smile had been forced.

 _You don’t want to be there, do you?_ she thought.

Takeshi laughed. “Here come the champions!”

She could see the triplets get their phones ready to flood Twitter with their excited commentary of the skate. Something turned over in the pit of Yuuko’s stomach.

Yuuri and Victor stood facing each other and the music began to play. They bowed to each other and joined hands so they could drift into a dance.

The routine was very dull. They moved around the ice, hardly interrupting the flow for any elements. Their movements felt very rigid. It was all too obvious that they were both too focused on where their feet were to pay anything else any attention.

As they neared the end, Victor tripped and lost his balance. Yuuri caught him before he could come crashing down on the ice and they wobbled for the next few seconds before they could right themselves again. The music ended and both men hastily assumed the final position.

The air filled with polite applause.

Victor turned away with a scowl. Yuuri’s head was lowered.

It came as no surprise to anyone that when the judges handed out the scores, Yuuri and Victor got the lowest scores. The screen changed to show the scoreboard. Two pairs were tied for first place. The others were all more or less evenly spread out, just two points between first place and the second last one. And somewhere at the very, very bottom were Yuuri and Victor, five points below the second last pair.

The hosts talked excitedly about voting, but Yuuko wasn’t listening.

Yuuri lost the first round! Yuuri, that very hard-working, super-talented figure skater, who’d broken the world record several times throughout his career, was losing in Skating with the Stars!

Takeshi placed his hand over hers. “He’ll be fine,” he assured her with a gentle tone. “He can handle this.”

Yuuko nodded.

“Mom, who are we going to vote for?” Axel asked.

Lutz grinned. “I already voted for Yuuri. Who else could I possibly vote for?”

The triplets got into a huddle, debating who should get their votes in hushed voices. After several arguments back and forth, they all agreed to vote for Yuuri. Yuuko felt a touch of pride at this decision.

Takeshi raised his eyebrows at his wife. “Will you vote for him?”

“I have to,” she insisted. “I have to give him all the support I can.”

She waited for him to remind her of the argument they’d had throughout the previous season of Skating with the Stars. Yuuko had passionately defended voting for the best pair based on their skating alone, every single round. Yet, here she was – doing the opposite.

“I know he can do so much better,” she added, feeling a desperate need to defend herself.

“He definitely can,” Takeshi agreed.

Yuuko raised her phone and put her vote in, feeling like a hypocrite.

Yuuri stood in the shower, wishing he could wash his shame away as easily as he was washing all the dirt off his body.

He should’ve never agreed to be part of Skating with the Stars! He’d thought that all he had to do was skate badly to make sure that they were up for elimination at the next round, but he’d never thought about how it would feel to go out on the ice and not try. It felt wrong, as if he was telling blatant lies that whole time he was out there and he was desperate for it to just end. Even the thought he’d had about Yakov enjoying a little joke at sticking Victor into a beast costume wasn’t enough to distract him.

He’d never felt this humiliated in his life. He knew it wasn’t his fault, but how could he claim that if he knew deep down that he hadn’t been trying either?

He wasn’t sure he could face Yakov after a humiliation like that.

Yuuri closed his eyes. He just wanted it all to be over already.

 _Just one more show,_ he told himself. _Just one more._

The rules were simple: two pairs were up for elimination at the next round. The audience voted for the one they wanted to keep and the pair that was leaving the show would skate the routine they’d prepared for the next round. All they had to do was prepare one more routine, skate it in front of the cameras and he would be free.

That wasn’t so hard, was it? Thanks to the early filming, they would have more than one week to work on it.

If there was one thing Yuuri was grateful for, it was that his habit of avoiding all kinds of social media meant that when the episode went up he wouldn’t have to deal with people’s reactions to it.

He thought of Victor. That man spent too much time on social media, so he was bound to see what the reactions would be. There was no way to avoid that.

_God, I hope he doesn’t drag me through all that._

When Victor appeared at practice the following day, he had a defeated air about him. It was obvious that whatever had motivated him was now gone and he showed up at every practice session that followed with a dull expression on his face and the air of someone performing a duty he didn’t enjoy one bit.

Again, Yakov gave them a routine that barely had a single element in it, but this time Victor didn’t bother to comment.

Yuuri felt a pang of something he identified too late as disappointment. This was it and Victor wasn’t even going to try.

 _I can’t really judge,_ he reminded himself. _I wasn’t going to try either._ But still it stung.

Their two weeks of training dragged out at a snail’s pace until, at last, the morning of the day they were scheduled to film the next round dawned.

Yuuri’s first thought upon waking up was that this would be the last time he would have to do this. It was almost over. Just a little more left to go. Just a little tiny bit.

The thought helped him climb out of bed and pull his clothes on. It following him through his morning routine and kept him company during his jog.

It was only when they were both standing with the other pair that was up for elimination that Yuuri felt a spark of fear. How bad would their results be?

A wave of shame rose to Yuuri’s face. Would anyone have voted for them?

The hosts talked about the rules, reminding the viewers how they were going to determine who would be eliminated. Yuuri listened absent-mindedly, wondering what he would do if he and Victor got no votes at all.

 _We don’t deserve any votes anyway,_ he reminded himself. _Not even pity votes. People should pick the pair that’s better at skating._

There was a big screen on the wall facing them. Yuuri stared at it, waiting for the results to go up and braced himself for the worst.

“Yuuri and Victor” it said next to the left hand column. The left hand one was labelled with two other names.

A red bar began to grow on the right hand side and the numbers above it went up.

 _There’s nothing on our side at all,_ Yuuri thought desperately, pressing his hands to his face.

As if it heard him, a blue column rose on the left hand side. First it read 1%, then 5%, then 10%, 20%…

Yuuri felt his mouth fall open as the numbers grew. They started out slowly and gathered speed, leaping 5%, then 10% at a time. After several seconds they began to slow down, before finally settling on…

_Yuuri and Victor: 90%._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the accidental hiatus. With everything that’s been happening in the world lately, my regular routine got turned upside down, which somehow turned into me having very little time each day to write. I hope you all stay healthy and stay safe!


	5. A Change in the Routine

Victor couldn’t believe it. They were still in the show. For some reason, the viewers had decided that he deserved a second chance. Just when he’d come to accept the fact that competing in Skating with the Stars had been a bad idea, the viewers went and voted for him to stay, as if to say that they wanted him to keep trying.

He took in the shock on Yuuri’s face. He hadn’t been prepared for this either. Shock was soon replaced by a frown, making Victor wonder if something was wrong.

 _Maybe he thinks us staying behind is wrong._ It occurred to him. _I know I didn’t expect to do this well, but…_ He glanced at the results of the vote and then at the pair they’d been up against.

He knew nothing about skaters, but he’d followed every single person who was competing against him this season. That was why he knew who from each pair was a skater and who wasn’t.

They’d just eliminated Georgi and Anya. Georgi was a singles skater, just like Yuuri and Anya was a radio host from a morning program, one of those people who was paid to sound cheerful and awake at a time when most of the world was either asleep, or trying to wake themselves up with coffee.

“And now Georgi and Anya will skate their routine for us!”

Yuuri and Victor got off the ice to stand off to the sidelines and watch.

It wasn’t fair, Victor admitted in the privacy of his thoughts. The pair that was leaving had a beautiful lift in their routine while all they had were a few synchronized bits he couldn’t remember the name for, but which Yakov had referred to as an element.

Anya raised her arms gracefully and the audience cheered.

Victor wondered darkly if he would trip again when it was their turn to go out on the ice.

 _After today’s skate we’re bound to get eliminated,_ he told himself, but for some reason the thought didn’t bring him any comfort.

He wasn’t sure who had decided that they should skate last, but as he watched the other pairs go out on the ice, it struck him that they all had routines which were much more difficult than theirs was. They all had at least one lift in their routine. One of the pairs even included a toss.

 _We don’t have any of that,_ Victor thought. _All because both Yakov and Yuuri are convinced that I’m not ready._ He watched the non-skaters in each pair and compared them against himself. _They’re all much better than I am._

The thought opened up like a deep pit before his feet. Everyone was better at skating than he was.

He remembered watching the previous season of Skating with the Stars and seeing pairs that had obviously been picked out to pad up the numbers. There were people no one had expected to win and he remembered all too well how dismissive he’d been about them. Now he was one of them himself.

But he thrived on attention. He needed it to live and breathe. Nothing made him happier than when he made a post that accumulated millions of notes, comments and likes. On days when he felt like he didn’t have the energy to go on, he would look at those millions of notes and feel as if all that excitement was pouring into his body. He _needed_ this.

And now he wasn’t going to get it.

Yuuri’s mind, meanwhile, was filled with thoughts of a slightly different nature. They were still in the show. This meant he’d have to go out there, humiliate himself again and hope that next time the audience would put him out of his misery.

He wanted out. Oh, how badly he needed to get out of this!

The other pairs were already increasing the difficulty of their routines, while he and Victor had prepared something that wasn’t all that different from their previous routine.

The last pair finished and exchanged smiles with each other. Yuuri felt a pang of jealousy. They were having fun while he was too busy wishing he could run away somewhere.

 _Would that have been me, if my partner had been someone else?_ he wondered.

But then, maybe all the celebrities who weren’t skaters were like Victor. Maybe the problem wasn’t in Victor, but in him. After all, he knew how popular all those apps were.

“You’re next,” Yakov reminded them.

A cheer went up from the audience and Yuuri turned his head to look at one of the screens just in time to see the high marks the pair got.

 _All those people who voted for us are going to be so disappointed,_ he thought.

But what can we do now? There was nothing else left to do, but to go out there and skate as best as he could.

His eye fell on Victor and he saw that the man was frowning.

 _What is it this time?_ Yuuri wondered, but there was no way, short of asking him directly, to learn the answer.

This time they didn’t even have interesting costumes to capture the audience’s attention and as they went out on the ice Yuuri became certain, once again, that this was it. No one would vote for them after this.

The feeling was there when they finished skating and didn’t change after the judges awarded them marks even lower than last time.

 _We just don’t belong here,_ Yuuri thought sadly.

When the judges gave their comments on his and Victor’s skating, Yuuri was convinced that they also regretted the choice the viewers had made.

 _No one wants us here,_ he thought, lowering his head and staring down at his feet.

He was in a very bad mood after that. Several times Victor tried to say something to him, but Yuuri hardly let him get a word out, making some poor excuse about being tired, determined to avoid making photos or videos for Victor to post.

He expected to lie awake in bed, tossing and turning, but as soon as his head hit the pillow he fell asleep, too exhausted to think about everything that had happened.

When the morning of the next day came, he was awake an entire quarter of an hour before his alarm and lay in bed, enjoying these few moments of peace.

Birds sang outside his window, their voices filling the air with sweet sounds.

He could go for a jog, he thought, take a long route through the park, pass by his favourite oak tree and listen to all the birds singing there. As soon as the idea formed in his mind, he slipped out of bed, impatient to get to it at once.

It was a beautiful morning, the kind that comes before a very hot summer day. The sun was just rising as Yuuri opened his window and looked out.

Then he changed and headed out for his jog.

There was no one outside and he followed his usual route, basking in the false feeling of the whole city belonging to him. At moments like this, life felt so much simpler. All he had to think about was where he would make the next turn. His only worry was how warm he was feeling. There were no expectations at moments like this.

The sky was an endless clear blue. The trees in the park bent over him on either side, as if trying to shield him from the sun’s rays. He circled a small pond and spotted a few geese sitting in the grass. One stood on guard, its head turning on its long neck.

Yuuri found himself smiling. He’d seen those geese attack people and he knew to stay away, but there was something comforting about the sight of those geese.

 _They don’t care how I skate,_ he thought and felt his mood worsen.

The road moved away from the pond and the geese disappeared from view.

There was the oak tree he’d thought about up ahead and…

His thoughts ground to a halt.

There, under the oak tree stood Victor. He turned at the sound of Yuuri approaching, leaving Yuuri with no choice but to talk to him.

“Good morning.” He did his best to hide his frustration at stumbling into Victor like this. “Out for a walk?” _Taking selfies in front of the tree now?_

“Good morning, Yuuri.” Was it Yuuri’s imagination, or was there a hint of sadness in Victor’s smile?

He waited for Victor answer his question, but the man blinked at him in silence for several seconds, as if he hadn’t heard what Yuuri had said. Finally he turned his head to look at the big tree. “I woke up early and thought I’d go for a walk,” he explained. Then he met Yuuri’s eye and added, “I didn’t know you went jogging here.”

His tone was light, making it impossible to get angry at him. Yuuri did his best to mirror his tone back. “Going through the park is very pleasant, much nicer than the streets.”

Victor turned to look at the oak. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a tree this tall before.”

 _It’s not that tall,_ Yuuri thought, raising his eyes to study the branches that spread out overhead.

“But then…” Victor gave a little laugh. “I suppose that’s not surprising since I hardly ever go to parks.”

For a while, Yuuri was silent. He’d heard of Central Park, so he knew for certain that there was at least one park he could go to in New York. But maybe Victor was simply not a park person.

Victor studied him, as if trying to read how Yuuri would react to those words. “Do you come running here every day?” he finally asked.

“Yes,” Yuuri answered and tried to think of something more to add. It was nice here, but he’d already said that.

Instead, he found his thoughts going over what Victor had said. Sure, Yuuri spent a lot of his time out on the ice, but he’d do his best to find an hour or two to go outside and be here, in the fresh air and under the trees. He’d never thought about it much, but now the image of always staying within four walls bothered him.

Victor said something, but Yuuri had been so deep in his thoughts that he had to ask Victor to repeat himself.

“Can I join you when you go jogging?” Victor asked. The look on his face suggested that he already knew what the answer to that question was, and that it would be a negative one.

This caught Yuuri by surprise. He’d gotten so used to Victor acting like he was allowed to do anything he wanted, that hearing him ask for permission didn’t feel right.

He wanted to say “no”. This was the time to be alone with his thoughts, to enjoy the silence. But he couldn’t think of a way to turn Victor down. What could he possibly say if Victor asked him why?

He nodded. “Yes,” he agreed in a low voice, hating himself.

“Where were you off to now?” Victor asked, his expression brightening.

“I was going to circle around and go to the skating rink,” Yuuri explained. Suddenly the birds’ songs didn’t sound as sweet and the blue sky looked less bright.

Victor tucked in his arms and started to jog on the spot. “I’m ready.”

There was nothing to do then but to lead the way.

 _Why is he doing this?_ Yuuri wondered. _Is he just bored? He doesn’t have to go jogging with me!_

But Victor didn’t say anything that could explain why he’d joined Yuuri. Instead, he spent the whole jog pointing out all the various things they passed.

After going like this for several minutes, Yuuri wondered what it would take to get Victor to stop.

The park ended and they were out on a small street that led to the arena. Even here, among the sleepy houses, Victor had some observations to make. Yuuri wanted it all to end already.

The arena appeared up ahead of them and Yuuri felt relief rise in his chest. Almost there.

He’d been saying that a lot to himself lately, he realized with an unpleasant pang. “Just a little more” and “almost there” – how often had he pushed himself onwards with the force of those thoughts? And never once had they turned out to be true.

Resentment stung him bitterly. He threw a cautious sideways glance at Victor and fought the urge to make a comment.

“What training do you do, apart from skating?” Victor suddenly asked. “I just realized that I’ve only been there for some of your training. I think it’s a good idea for me to attend more.”

Rude words rose in Yuuri’s throat and he just barely managed to hold them back. His mind raced. What was Victor getting at? Could it be that it finally occurred to him that figure skating required a lot of training and didn’t just happen at the snap of a camera?

 _It’s too late to think about that now,_ Yuuri thought. _After how badly we skated, we’ll definitely be out in the next round!_

Still, he did his best to keep himself under control and answer Victor in a calm tone of voice. He described all the training he did, including the jogging. He let himself forget that this current training schedule was less demanding than the one he followed as he got close to a major competition and described his typical routine in the months leading up to the last Winter Olympics.

And then he stopped. For a moment, he could remember that timeless drive that had pushed him every day for a whole year. He remembered those moments when he’d go out on the ice and love every second of his program. He remembered that magical moment at the end of his free skate when he finished and the audience rewarded him with a standing ovation and he knew he’d won. He remembered standing on the podium with the Olympic gold medal around his neck, a world record to his name and a big grin on his face.

Those were the moments that had made it all worth it. That was his reward for weeks of hard work – not so much the gold medal, but the sensation of standing on the podium and knowing that he’d earned it.

“Yuuri?” Victor’s voice brought him back to the here and now.

“Sorry, I… I just got caught in my memories,” Yuuri said.

He gave a nod as if accepting Yuuri’s excuse as perfectly natural. “I’d like to join you for all of that,” he declared.

Yuuri stared at him in disbelief. “Why?” the question slipped out before he could stop himself.

“How else am I supposed to prepare for the next round?” Victor asked.

Why did he just describe his training routine for the Olympics? Yuuri found himself torn between two opposite thoughts. Victor needed to spend more time training, if he was going to take this seriously, a part of him insisted. Yeah, but that meant spending more time in Skating with the Stars, a different part of him pointed out. The two parts of him then arrived at an odd sort of compromise: after how they skated last time, no one could possibly vote for them to stay.

“You’re right,” he agreed.

By the time they entered the arena they were discussing the day’s schedule, breaking the remainder of the day up into little bits. Victor had his phone out and was entering everything they discussed into his calendar app.

Yuuri just managed to refrain from commenting. If Victor wanted his phone to continue walking him through life, it was his choice and was none of Yuuri’s business.

Victor must’ve noticed the way Yuuri was watching him, because he looked up and said, “I can sent it all to you, if you want.” Then he remembered who he was talking to and added, “but you don’t use MyCalendar, do you?”

“I don’t,” Yuuri admitted. _I don’t even know what that is,_ he added mentally.

“It’s so handy, though!” Victor exclaimed. “I don’t know where I’d be without it!”

Yuuri looked away. “I prefer to remember my schedule,” he said coldly and hoped that he hadn’t come across as very rude.

“I tried that at first,” Victor admitted, “but then I’d get all these invites to events – birthdays and weddings. It just got too hard to keep track of it all.”

This earned him a sideways glance from Yuuri. He rarely ever went to parties, which might have been the reason why he was always a little suspicious of people who went on about all the parties they had to go to. Too often it sounded like boasting and showing off to him. He remained silent.

“Anyway,” Victor said, “I can still send it to you, just in case you change your mind about using it.” He lowered his eyes to his phone and frowned. “Except I just remembered that I don’t have your number.”

Ah, yes. Yuuri did his best to ignore the hint. “It’s fine,” he said. “Like you already guessed, I don’t use MyCalendar, so you don’t need to bother sending it to me,” Yuuri said as he walked into the change room. “Let’s focus on the training.” He uttered a silent prayer that this time Victor would finally listen.

Victor was silent.

Yuuri wondered how he was taking it, but he didn’t dare turn his head to check.

“You’re right,” Victor admitted in a low voice, but when Yuuri turned his head to stare at him, he couldn’t tell what the expression on his face was, because he’d leaned down to tie on his skates.

Yuuri had seen enough of Victor’s antics to squash the hope that rose in his chest. He was just saying that but he was bound to continue on in the same way as before, without a care for what anyone around him thought.

Remembering where he was and what they were about to do, Yuuri sat down and pulled his shoes off.

Victor finished tying his skates and got up with the words, “I’ll meet you in the rink.” And he was gone.

Yuuri tied his skates on thoughtfully. Victor was showing a lot of interest in skating and Yuuri couldn’t help but wonder why. What did this sudden change of heart mean?

 _Is it as simple as him wanting to make up for his poor performance in the past?_ Yuuri wondered. _Or did something happen that I missed?_

He considered going online to try to find an explanation for Victor’s behaviour, but dismissed this idea as absurd almost right away.

 _It can’t be that,_ Yuuri tried to persuade himself. _And if it is, I’d rather not know._

A few minutes later he was at the rink where Victor was already deep in practice. He was going through all the elements he knew, repeating each one several times.

Yuuri stood transfixed. Here it was again: another bit of proof that for some reason that remained hidden from Yuuri Victor was taking all this seriously now.

Several guesses as to why occurred to Yuuri at once, but he pushed them all to the back of his mind and stepped out on the ice.

He stood there for several moments, feeling invisible while Victor kept on going as if he wasn’t there. It was a little eerie.

Finally Victor spun around, caught sight of him and made towards Yuuri with a smile on his face.

“Ready?” Yuuri asked not so much because he wanted to hear the answer, but more because he felt the need to say something in that moment.

“Ready,” Victor confirmed with a nod. He held out his hand.

Yuuri stared at him in silence for several minutes, unable to understand what the gesture meant. And then he realized that he was meant to take it and felt foolish.

Together they went around the rink twice before Victor spoke again. “Can we repeat the last part of last week’s routine?”

It was such an unexpected question that Yuuri didn’t know how to react to it. He agreed without thinking and it took him several seconds to understand what Victor had said and another few seconds to remember the part of the routine he’d been referring to.

Who was this man and what had he done with Victor? Where had all the concentration come from? There was no sign of Victor’s phone or any hint of his wandering attention. It was a bit unnerving.

Yuuri stumbled a few times, unable to focus on the skating himself.

“Am I doing something wrong?”

He turned, his face full of surprise at this question. “No,” the answer slipped out before he could stop and think. And then the meaning sank in. “No,” he repeated. “I was distracted, sorry.”

Victor flashed him a smile. “Distracted? By what?”

Yuuri opened his mouth to answer, but was saved the trouble by Victor exclaiming, “But we should train now! Maybe you can tell me later?”

Unable to believe his ears, Yuuri just nodded.

After a while, Yakov joined them. Yuuri saw that he, too, was caught off guard by the change in Victor’s behaviour. But the old coach pulled himself together and instructed them as if nothing was wrong.

“Now listen closely, I need to talk to you about your routine,” the old coach began.

Again Yuuri braced himself for a comment from Victor, but he remained quiet and – here Yuuri threw a quick glance in his direction – very attentive.

“The theme for this week is magical girls and boys,” Yakov explained. “You will be skating to music from Revolutionary Girl Utena.”

Yuuri blinked and threw another glance at Victor. Both of them looked equally blank at that name.

“Um…” Victor tried.

“Problem?” There was a dangerous glint in Yakov’s eyes and it silenced Victor instantly.

“No problem, no,” Victor was quick to assure him.

“Good.” The coach nodded. “As for your routine…”

Both of them listened without interrupting until he finished, ready to go out on the ice and attempt what he was describing as soon as he was done.

“I don’t have a lot of time to spend with you today,” Yakov admitted once he’d finished, “so I hope I won’t have to repeat myself.”

They both nodded.

“Now, let’s see how much you understood from all that,” Yakov said and left to put the music on for them.

Yuuri let his attention wander over to Victor. The man waited patiently as if he had all the time in the world.

A click broke the silence and a song began to play, drawing Yuuri’s attention back to their coach. It wasn’t the sort of music he would’ve picked for himself, he found himself thinking, but soon dismissed that thought. This sort of observation wasn’t relevant at a time like this.

Actually, his brain insisted, all of the music they’d skated to so far wasn’t the sort of music he usually skated to.

“I wish he’d picked something I know,” Victor whispered.

Yuuri nodded without saying a word and they did their best to take their initial position, or what they thought was supposed to be their initial position.

Yakov’s time with them was almost over when he pulled them aside and gave Victor a long lecture. This felt so familiar that it only served to remind Yuuri how odd everything up until that point had been.

Still, the day seemed to be determined not to run out of surprises: Victor listened in obedient silence and merely responded with a “yes, coach” when Yakov had finished.

Yakov stuck around long enough for Victor to demonstrate that he’d understood the coach’s instructions and left.

Yuuri realized then that he was bracing himself for Victor to change his behaviour abruptly, to turn around and go back to acting as if none of this mattered, but Victor only stopped to wish Yakov a good day before returning to practice.

They spent another hour out on the ice before returning to the change room.

Victor went for his phone and Yuuri felt frustration rise in his chest.

“Where do you want to go for lunch?” Victor asked.

Yuuri raised his head just in time to see Victor put his phone away again. “I’d rather go back to my apartment,” he admitted.

Every day until now, Victor had gone off somewhere on his own for lunch, sometimes extending the invitation to Yuuri, but always leaving alone. Yuuri always assumed he went somewhere expensive where they served food arranged like a work of art.

“I’ll go get takeout,” Victor announced. He was silent for several moments before adding, “I’ll see you after lunch.”

“Yeah…” And then it occurred to Yuuri that Victor had hoped for an invitation to Yuuri’s place.

Yuuri wasn’t sure he wanted Victor to come back to his apartment. Before, he’d been certain that he didn’t want Victor there, but there was a hint of doubt now. Should he have invited Victor?

No, of course not. He shook his head. What a strange thought! So Victor was serious today, so what? That didn’t make up for all those times Victor had made Yuuri’s life difficult.

Still, as he watched Victor walk away, he couldn’t suppress the feeling of guilt that rose inside him.

The feeling kept him company on his way home and while he ate. Only when he was going back did he succeed in shrugging it off, but as soon as he stepped into the change room and found Victor tying the laces of his skates, as soon as he realized that Victor had arrived before him, the feeling returned with full force.

Doing his best to keep it in check, Yuuri got ready to go out on the ice as if nothing was wrong.

It was easier to forget about his feelings this time: both Victor and he spent too much energy trying to figure out how the routine was supposed to go to have any left to spare for thoughts of anything else.

“This would’ve been easier if we knew the story,” Yuuri admitted, giving a little sigh after they had another long debate over what Yakov had told them.

“That’s it!” Victor exclaimed. “Tonight I’m going to watch Utena and figure out what this routine should be!”

Yuuri considered this. “I guess that could work…” he admitted softly.

“Don’t worry,” Victor reassured him. “I’ll fill you in on all the details.” He gave Yuuri a serious look and then his face split into a grin.

Yuuri felt the corners of his own mouth rise. He turned away. “A-alright. Let’s end the training here, then.”

“But what about the evening jog?” Victor asked, earning another sideways glance from Yuuri. “I thought you said we would go jogging after?”

The memory of that day’s lunch rose up treacherously in Yuuri’s mind. “Ok. Let’s jog back together.”

On their way back, at Victor’s suggestion, they went through the park again, but didn’t stop even once. They were almost at Yuuri’s apartment when Yuuri realized where they were and that Victor must be staying in a different part of the city entirely.

“Where are you staying?” he asked.

“Not far from here,” Victor looked around. “Probably,” he added in a low voice. “What about you?”

“My place is two blocks from here,” Yuuri admitted.

Victor pulled his phone out of his pocket, clicked a few buttons, frowned, typed something in and then gave a satisfied nod. “I need to turn here,” he said, nodding to the right. “See you tomorrow.”

Yuuri stood and watched Victor jog away, his phone in his hand. He stared after him for several minutes before, at last, he shook himself from his reverie and walked the rest of the way home.

What a strange day!

Yuuri awoke the following day, convinced that everything that had happened to him the day before had been nothing more than a dream. He went through his usual morning routine and got ready to go out, pretending to himself that the previous day hadn’t happened.

He didn’t get to continue in this blissful state for long, however. He was barely a block away from his apartment when a reminder of everything that had happened appeared before him, impossible to ignore.

Victor stood at the very spot where they’d gone separate ways the day before.

“Good morning!” he called out and gave a big wave.

“Good morning.” Too late Yuuri realized that his own voice sounded cold, especially when compared to Victor’s. And then another thought occurred to him, “Have you been waiting here long?” he asked.

Victor gave a dismissive wave of his hand. “Oh, twenty minutes, but listen – I started watching Utena yesterday and it’s amazing! You have to watch it!”

Yuuri didn’t know how to respond to this. He gave a little nod to indicate the direction he’d intended to jog in.

Victor stepped out of his way and fell into step next to him. As they made for the park, Victor gave an excited account of the show, filled with his opinions of the various characters.

Yuuri had a difficult time making sense of any of it: Victor tended to jump around when telling a story. A few of the comments he made led Yuuri to suspect that he’d watched the whole thing in one night, which made him wonder how long it was. Did Victor say show or movie?

He was too far gone for Yuuri to stop him and ask now.

They passed through the park, Yuuri only half-listening to what Victor was saying and got to the Arena before Victor could run out of things to tell Yuuri about Utena.

Only when they were out on the ice did Yuuri cut straight to the point, “So the two main characters – what’s their story?”

“Love, of course!”

Ah.

He could see how this would all play out and he was dreading every minute of it.

However, all Victor did was make one excited comment about how good the costumes were bound to be before he faced Yuuri with a serious expression on his face. “Let’s start?”

Yuuri circled Victor and stopped in front of him, taking their initial position.

Victor frowned. “Actually, I had a thought last night.” He skated over to the boards and retrieved his phone.

Yuuri’s heart fell. Here it came. He knew it had been too good to last. Here it was: Victor would take a photo of him, or ask to take a video, or…

Or show him a picture that made no sense at first glance.

Yuuri squinted at the screen.

“I was just thinking,” Victor said. “If we’re going to use the opening theme, why not use their first pose?”

Now Yuuri could make sense of what he was seeing: two women lay on their sides, curled up as if asleep.

Victor tapped the screen and showed that what Yuuri had assumed to be a picture, was in fact just a frozen frame of a video. The music they’d been assigned began to play and the women spun around.

“Do you think we could spin like that?” Victor asked.

Yuuri studied the screen in silence for several seconds. “If we use one hand to push, we might be able to do it.”

“Great!” Victor grinned.

By the time Yakov joined them, they’d gotten it mostly figured out.

Yuuri rose off the ice, brushing little bits of ice off his pants and off his gloves with a satisfied smile on his face only to be greeted by the old coach’s stony expression.

“Good morning, Yakov!” Victor exclaimed. “Yuuri and I came up with a different start for our routine!”

“Show me,” was the coach’s only response.

Victor threw a smile at Yuuri and they both lay down on the ice. They lay on their sides, curled up side by side.

They spun around in silence before getting up again and looking at Yakov, waiting to see what his response would be.

“Hmm… Not bad.” He nodded in approval.

Yuuri and Victor exchanged relieved smiles.

“Now we will work on the rest,” Yakov told them.

A quick sideways glance told Yuuri that Victor had a determined expression on his face. He was ready. Yuuri did his best to match that expression and to convince himself that he felt equally determined.

After that, time seemed to fly by. Before he knew it, Yuuri was standing before several cameras with Victor on one side of him and the other pair up for elimination – on the other.

The hosts did their usual introductions and explained the rules for what felt like the hundredth time (even though it was only the third) and Yuuri braced himself for what would happen next.

_At least, if by some miracle they vote for us to stay, it won’t be as embarrassing as last time._

He bit his lip. Kept in the show? How could anyone vote for them after their horrible skating last time?

 _But Victor worked so hard for this routine!_ a voice in the back of his mind insisted. _It will be so sad, if we’re voted off the show now that he’s finally taking it seriously!_ He thought of how tired Victor had looked at the end of every practice session and how obvious it was that Victor giving it his all now and felt bad.

And then he thought of the other pairs. They’d all worked hard. More than that, they’d worked hard from the very beginning.

 _We don’t deserve to be here,_ Yuuri concluded sadly.

He lowered his eyes and hoped it would be over soon.

“And now let’s see how you all voted this week!” someone’s voice boomed over the speakers.

Yuuri kept his eyes lowered. He remembered all too well how twice already he’d been fooled into thinking that Victor and he were voted off the show at last. He didn’t want to be tricked again. He didn’t want to go through that mix of emotions, to go from thinking “finally I’m free” to “just one more week”.

A cheer went up from the audience and Yuuri lifted his head to see the results.

_Yuuri and Victor: 75%._

People wanted them to stay. He couldn’t believe it.

Again Victor watched the pair that was leaving, feeling like a usurper. Why were people still voting for them to stay? Couldn’t they see how much better the other participants were?

There was no arguing with the results of the vote, however, so Victor kept his thoughts to himself.

He was suddenly afraid of going out on the ice and skating before the judges. He was scared of getting bad marks again. It had been such a long time since he’d gotten evaluated based on how well he was doing something that he was still having a hard time adjusting to it.

How did Yuuri do this for a living?

On the ice, the pair that was leaving finished their routine and arranged themselves carefully into the final pose.

 _I need to work harder,_ Victor thought.

He watched them bow to the audience, smiling as if they’d won.

_I need to work a lot harder._

The next pair out on the ice was one of the top pairs. They were only on the third round and already Victor was convinced that the final battle for first place would be between them and someone else. Christophe Giacometti and Phichit Chulanont.

They were good and they both had a lot of flair – two factors that were bound to make them the viewers’ favourites.

The light focused on Phichit as he transformed into Sailor Moon (complete with the long wig, of course). He spun around and then a rose flew through the air and there was Christophe – in a black suit and white mask.

At first glance, it was silly: Sailor Moon lifting Tuxedo Mask over her head, but Victor could see from all the elements they’d included that it wasn’t an easy routine. They made no mistakes and, more than that, they succeeded in capturing the chemistry between the two characters perfectly.

 _Will we ever skate like that?_ Victor wondered as the skaters fought invisible enemies.

He risked a quick look in Yuuri’s direction, trying to find the answer in his face, but there was a complicated expression on his face that made reading his thoughts impossible.

 _Who am I kidding?_ Victor thought ruefully. _We should consider ourselves lucky for still being in the show._

As he watched the next pair skate he worried about his own skating. He wished he’d practiced more, that he’d tried his hardest from the very beginning. He should’ve been learning how to skate instead of wasting time like he’d done.

It was an odd thought, so unlike his other thoughts that it made him frown and wonder when was the last time he’d questioned his own actions.

He got so lost in his thoughts that he completely missed their cue to go out on the ice and had to be roused from his thoughts by Yuuri.

“Victor? Are you alright?”

The question almost made him laugh. Alright? He’d been alright in the sense of having everything he needed, but he hadn’t been _right_. He wished now that he’d been smart enough to realize this earlier.

Instead, he’d irritated Yuuri to the point where maybe he’d never like Victor, no matter what he did.

“It’s our turn,” Yuuri said gently, as if afraid that speaking loudly would upset Victor for some reason.

“Yeah…” he agreed.

He had to do everything he could. He had to keep trying his hardest and just hope that it would be enough.

As he followed Yuuri back out onto the ice, he did his best to get his thoughts in order. He had to focus on this, right here, right now.

Yuuri lay down on the ice and Victor followed his example, suddenly terrified that he wouldn’t be able to get up, or that he would forget the whole routine.

“Are you ok?” Yuuri whispered to him.

Victor closed his eyes. He couldn’t let Yuuri down. “Yes.”

The music began to play and they both spun three times. They paused with their heads close and leaned in as if for a kiss.

Yuuri sprang up and raised Victor to his feet. He got the part of Utena, the rebellious girl who stood up to bullies and stood up for the truth. Victor hadn’t even considered arguing that they switch roles.

Just like so many times in practice, he let Yuuri lead. Towards the very end, he reclined over Yuuri’s arm and Yuuri carried him in what was the closest they got to a lift so far.

He felt tense, afraid that any minute now he would make a mistake and send both of them toppling over. After all, he’d done it several times during practice. But Yuuri’s hold on him was steady and they remained upright.

Yuuri stopped moving and Victor raised his hands to take Yuuri’s face. The skate was finished.

“Well done,” Yuuri whispered just over Victor’s ear.

They released each other and bowed to the audience. Was it Victor’s imagination, or were they clapping louder this time?

 _Well done._ The words kept echoing in his head.

He felt his heartbeat quicken.

They bowed twice and made for the exit from the ice where Yakov was waiting for them.

There was a smile on his face. The sight was so unusual, or rather – it was so unusual for Yakov to be smiling at _him_ , that Victor was very taken aback at this.

“Well done,” the coach said, clapping Victor on the back.

Again the words echoed in his head and again his heartbeat quickened.

He stumbled into the kiss and cry, almost sitting down on Yuuri by accident. Yuuri shifted out of his way without a word.

“S-sorry,” Victor managed to stammer out just before the judges posted their marks.

Victor stared at the total number of points they’d gotten. Sure, it was more than what they’d gotten before, but he’d seen the scores the other pairs had gotten and he knew that he and Yuuri were far below everyone else. Even if they hadn’t been, at the end of every show, each pair’s scores were added to their scores from previous shows and the pair with the lowest total was up for elimination. They were so far behind now that it was impossible to catch up to the others.

They would be up for elimination again.

He lowered his head. Was all that work for nothing? Was it completely meaningless?

He felt someone put their hand on his shoulder and heard Yuuri say, “Figure skating isn’t about competing against others. It’s about competing against yourself. Do you see that score? It’s our new personal best.”

He raised his head and saw the small smile on Yuuri’s face.

Maybe those people who had voted for them were right: maybe they _did_ have the potential to do more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long breaks between updates! I finally have time to write now, and I did a lot of it over the past few days. Fingers crossed, the next chapters will come quickly!
> 
> The song they skate to from Revolutionary Girl Utena is [this one](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HL25C0H9vVw).


	6. Twizzles

Yuuri couldn’t explain why, but when he awoke the morning after they presented their Utena routine the first image that rose to his mind was that of Victor’s sad face after their scores were posted. A week ago he would’ve said “what did you expect?” and shaken his head. But after he’d seen Victor try his hardest, he didn’t have the heart to say something so cruel. So he’d done his best to reassure the man.

Yuuri put his hands over his face. _What did it matter?_ he suddenly thought. Three more shows and the whole thing was over, even if by some miracle they made it to the very end. Winning or losing here wouldn’t affect his ranking among figure skaters, it wouldn’t do anything for him.

 _You can’t deny that you enjoyed it,_ a voice in the back of his mind insisted and he remembered the moment when Victor reclined over his arm and Yuuri had carried him over the ice. The moment had come back in vivid detail, as if he was reliving it again.

Yuuri shut his eyes. It had been nice, he couldn’t deny that.

It was a beautiful day in the middle of September. The trees on Yuuri’s street were beginning to change the colour of their leaves. Greens were getting slowly replaced by bright yellows and fiery reds. The early autumn was nice, before the cold began to creep in and before the wind tore all the leaves off the trees.

In short, it was beautiful.

Victor was already waiting for Yuuri at what had become their regular morning meeting spot.

“It’s so beautiful outside!” he exclaimed as soon as they exchanged greetings.

Yuuri nodded. “Yes, on days like this I want to spend the whole day outside, just looking at the trees.”

“Same!” Victor agreed and laughed.

Yuuri gave him a curious look. It was odd how after spending an entire summer feeling as if his partner was completely different from him to find that they agreed on some points after all.

“Our next theme is musicals,” Victor said as they entered the park. “Do you think we could choose our music this time? I want to skate to the music from The Umbrellas of Cherbourg! It’s so sad, but it’s such good music!”

“I don’t know that one,” Yuuri admitted after a brief amount of time spent debating with himself as to whether or not to confess this.

“It’s a movie,” Victor explained. “A man and a woman are in love, but the man is called away to war. While he’s gone, the woman’s mother convinced her to marry someone else, so she does.”

“Oh.” Yuuri couldn’t think of anything else to say. “It _is_ very sad,” he agreed after a short pause.

Victor gave a loud sigh. “I never understood why she couldn’t stay loyal to him. Betrayal like that is unforgiveable!”

Yuuri remembered their conversation about the HotDate App. Hadn’t Victor implied that he got someone new to spend every night with him? How did that work with all this about loyalty? He wondered, if maybe he’d misunderstood something about that app.

“People should be loyal to the ones they love!” Victor went on passionately. His cheeks were pink and his hands were tightened into fists.

Yuuri remained silent. He pretended to be interested in the trees on either side of them.

A long pause followed before Victor remembered where he was. “You don’t mind skating to music from The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, do you?” he asked.

Yuuri was surprised by this question. “No,” he assured Victor and a small part of him was pleased that Victor had asked.

Victor was surprising him a lot these last few days and in good ways, too. Despite what Yuuri had initially assumed about him, he could work hard and now Yuuri was beginning to think that maybe Victor was a bit of a romantic.

“She should’ve waited forever for him,” Victor said with another sigh, as if the woman had betrayed him, or one of his close friends. “But the music is really good!” Victor went on, his eyes burning with excitement again. “Last night I saw a video of a pair skating to music from it.”

Yuuri tensed. Whatever video Victor had seen, Yuuri was sure that it was a skate from a competition, which meant that, in all probability, the routine they’d skated was too difficult for them to recreate. He hoped that Victor was good enough at skating now to know better than to suggest that they skate it exactly as they had done.

But either this idea didn’t occur to Victor, or he’d had the same thought, because he didn’t say anything about borrowing their routine and merely talked about how good their skating was.

“Do you remember their names?” Yuuri asked, unable to hold back his curiosity any longer.

Victor was silent for a short while as he tried to remember. “I think one of their names was… Scott?”

“Tessa and Scott?” Yuuri asked.

“That’s it! Have you heard of them?”

Heard of them? Yuuri hadn’t merely heard of them, he’d watched them compete several times, cheering them on even though they were representing a different country. “I watched them win silver in Worlds with that routine.”

“You watched them skate it?” Victor exclaimed. “I’m so jealous! Did you ever meet them?”

The memory of several short conversations flashed through Yuuri’s mind. “A few times,” he admitted. “I wouldn’t say we’re friends, though.”

A silence followed as Victor seemed to consider those words. “Of course!” he suddenly burst out. “ _You’re_ a figure skating champion too! You must go to competitions together all the time!”

 _Yes,_ Yuuri thought, _along with every other figure skater who represents their country._ But he was flattered that Victor remembered that he was a champion.

How strange! Why was he feeling flattered about this, of all things? What did it matter to _him_ if Victor remembered whether or not Yuuri was a champion?

The thought continued to trouble him as they made their way to the Arena, and even when they were out on the ice, he couldn’t find an answer to this question.

“I’ll play the music and maybe we can start thinking about our routine?” Victor suggested. It was framed as a question, so Yuuri nodded to show that he agreed.

Victor played the music on his phone and skated around the rink, deep in thought.

It was strange to think that here they were – picking out music on their own and trying to put together a routine to it before Yakov was even aware that they’d made their choice.

Yuuri squinted at the clock on the wall. Yakov wouldn’t be here for another two hours. That gave them enough time to come up with a rough outline of the routine, at least.

But Victor suddenly got very picky. None of the elements Yuuri suggested seemed to please him. He went round and round in circles, sometimes lifting his arms.

Something about his movements felt familiar to Yuuri until he realized that, unconsciously or not, Victor was repeating the very routine he’d mentioned earlier.

There was no avoiding it now.

“Victor,” Yuuri spoke up, catching the man by the hands. “We can’t skate that routine you saw. It’s too difficult for us.”

He frowned and stared at their joined hands.

Yuuri released him, feeling very self-conscious, but Victor kept frowning down at something.

“I suppose…” he admitted after a long while. Then he raised his head. “What if I practice it many times?”

Yuuri shook his head. “To get it right, you need the kind of skills that take years to develop. I wouldn’t be able to do the whole thing, either. Not with a week to practice it.

“What if we made an easy version of the skate?” Victor suggested. “We could take the lifts out and some of the other elements, of course.” There was a note of pleading in his voice now. It was painful to listen to.

“I suppose we could,” Yuuri relented. “I don’t know of any rules that say that we can’t.”

“Do you want to watch the whole routine and decide on what ours will be?” Victor offered.

Yuuri glanced at him. Again, he marvelled at the change that had come over Victor and, again, the thought rose in his mind that he preferred not to know the reason behind this change.

It felt that almost no time at all passed before Yakov joined them.

Yuuri skated backwards, holding Victor’s hands. They were trying this part out for the third time when a voice rang out.

“Good morning. Trying to learn a new element?”

Victor stumbled.

Yuuri stopped and turned around to face Yakov. “Good morning,” he said and his thoughts sped up. What was the best way to explain what they were doing? Should he work his way to it gradually, or just get it over with in one go?

“Good morning! We’re putting together our new routine!” Victor burst out.

Yuuri cringed mentally. That didn’t sound like a good way to do it at all!

“Did you pick your music already?” Yakov asked. He must’ve arrived just after the song finished playing and missed it.

“Yes!” Victor skated over to his phone and played it again.

“The Umbrellas of Cherbourg,” Yakov said with a complicated expression on his face.

Yuuri watched him closely, trying to figure out what he thought of their choice.

“Inspired by…” Victor hesitated, “by Tessa and Scott’s free skate from several years ago.”

The expression on Yakov’s face solidified into something unpleasant. “Inspired by?” he repeated coldly.

“We can’t skate – I mean the actual routine is too difficult for us, of course,” Victor said in a serious tone, as if he’d come to that conclusion all by himself.

Yuuri silently prayed that the coach wouldn’t say anything more on the subject.

“Hmm…” Yakov’s face muscles relaxed a little. “Well, I suppose knowing your limits is a good start. Although, I generally encourage my students to push those a little.”

Victor and Yuuri exchanged a smile.

“Show me what you’ve come up with so far.”

Victor sat in bed, his back propped up against two pillows and watched the routine again. After several seconds, he found his attention wandering, unable to focus on the skaters anymore.

Again and again, he went over the same thoughts about the woman’s actions in the movie. Why hadn’t she stayed loyal? Why hadn’t she waited for her lover to return?

He’d have waited forever, if his lover had to leave him for some reason! Even when it looked like his lover wouldn’t come back, he’d wait forever!

He closed the YouTube App and his eye fell on the icon for the HotDate App. He’d used it so much before, but now he just didn’t have the heart for it anymore. He was just tired, he told himself, but a part of him wasn’t convinced.

 _Using is feels like cheating,_ a voice whispered in his head.

 _Cheating on who?_ he wondered. _I don’t have a boyfriend and, besides, everyone who uses HotDate knows what they’re signing up for, so it’s not cheating or dishonest._ But even though those words were true, they still felt like he was avoiding the real truth, the undeniable truth.

Victor sighed. There had been a time when he’d hated the thought of spending an evening alone. He’d stay up late, wishing for a boyfriend and then imagining that he was with him, his true love. Then they announced the HotDate App and he got on it as quickly as he could. Sure, there were a couple of men he’d invited over more than once, but it had always been about how good they were in bed and never anything else.

Now those memories left him feeling hollow inside.

 _I’ve always dreamed of someone coming into my life and sweeping me off my feet,_ he thought, _when did it become just about sex? How did I end up like this?_

He tossed his phone onto the bedside table and dropped onto his back. He remembered dating in high school, but the boy he’d gone out with didn’t have much beyond good looks. He could remember getting into modelling and then his life turned into a complicated schedule, managed by his phone.

On his twenty-fifth birthday he realized that he had no boyfriend, no one really close to him for him to celebrate with. He got really drunk and spent most of the night at a strip club. On his twenty-sixth birthday he found something work-related to do to fill the day so that it would pass too quickly for him to remember what day it was. His twenty-seventh birthday he celebrated by inviting two men through the HotDate App and spending several hours in their very engaging company.

Victor could still remember waking up the next morning, catching sight of all the teeth marks and lipstick smudges on his body, and seeing the tears rolling silently down his face.

At which point in his life had he decided that he wasn’t even going to try to get what he wanted? He’d spent so long just going through the motions of life without really living that he wondered if he’d ever truly lived. Now here he was, in Detroit, of all places, participating in what was supposed to be a fun show and having an existential crisis instead.

He sighed. Was it something about this place that was making him think about himself and his life like this?

He thought about New York, perpetually busy New York that was always ready to provide him with a million new appointments, whether he wanted them or not. There had barely been time to stop and breathe in a life like that, never mind taking a few seconds to think.

But now he _was_ thinking. He was thinking a lot and he wasn’t sure he was enjoying it.

Was it something about Detroit or its outskirts? He’d never lived for so long on the outskirts of a city. Maybe it had this effect on everyone.

Could it be the show itself? All that experimenting and trying new things might be what was pushing his thoughts in directions they’d never explored before.

Or maybe it was Yuuri with his odd aversion to technology, Yuuri who had the air of something very natural to him. Victor had met many handsome men who owed their good looks to regular visits to tanning salons, or carefully controlled diets, or plastic surgeries, or little corrections here and there to their appearance. Yuuri owed his looks to genetics and lots of figure skating training sessions. Only rigorous training like his could give a person the beautiful thighs he had.

Victor gave a little sigh and closed his eyes. His thoughts backed away and he tried to think about something else.

_“Figure skating isn’t about competing against others. It’s about competing against yourself.”_

Two weeks ago he would’ve thought he words sounded strange. How could someone compete against themselves? It was nonsense. That’s what he would’ve said then, but now he understood.

He’d worked as hard as he could. He was giving it his all now, so if it wasn’t enough to beat the other contestants, the least he could do was do better than last time.

He gave a heavy sigh and turned onto his side. His whole body ached, but he’d never once breathed a word of complaint to anyone. He would see this through until the viewers voted him off.

Doing better every time… wasn’t that true about everything out there?

Sleep pulled him in before he could continue that thought.

The sun’s rays broke through the window and touched Victor’s face, waking him from his sleep. He turned over onto his side and wondered if he should get up already.

The alarm burst out, playing a catchy tune. Once, he’d found it impossible to stay still when he heard it, but now he was beginning to hate it. It was probably a sign that it was time to change his alarm to something else.

He sat up and stretched before turning the alarm off.

Outside the sky was a clear blue, promising another beautiful day. He gazed out the window with a smile on his face. He felt so well-rested. It was such a pleasant feeling that he closed his eyes and let himself bask in the pure joy of it for several seconds.

In less than an hour he would meet Yuuri for their usual morning jog. Yes, today was going to be a wonderful day.

Two hours later, Yuuri and Victor were out on the ice, going through what they had of their routine so far from start to finish under Yakov’s scrutinizing stare.

“Hmm…” the coach mumbled once they finished. “The routine would really benefit from some twizzles. Do you think you could learn how to do them in a couple of days?”

“Twizzles?” Victor repeated blankly. Wasn’t that a rubbery snack? What did it have to do with figure skating?

“A twizzle is when you rotate several times on one leg,” Yakov explained.

“Oh.” Victor had mastered several simple spins and this didn’t sound like it would be that much more difficult.

Yakov and Yuuri exchanged a glance.

“I’ll show you,” Yuuri volunteered.

Victor watched closely as Yuuri skated away and then back towards Victor. He raised one foot and spun on his other. This demonstration only helped reassure Victor. It didn’t look like twizzles would be a problem.

He faced Yakov with a confident smile. “I don’t see why we can’t add it in.”

“Your rotations need to be synchronized,” Yakov added, “otherwise the judges will deduct points from you.”

Synchronized. One extra word and the element didn’t sound so simple anymore.

He could feel them both staring at him, waiting for his answer. They were leaving the choice to _him_. But what was the right choice? What if he said “let’s do it” and then it turned out that a few days was not enough time for him to figure out how to do it? But would saying no mean that he was just giving up?

“I want to try,” he said, doing his best to make his voice sound steady.

They had to do this, he assured himself. They weren’t including any proper lifts, so they’d have to try twizzles.

“Ok,” Yakov gave a nod to show his approval of this choice. “We’ll start with the easiest ones.”

Easiest ones?

As it turned out, twizzles came in various difficulty levels and depended on what preceded one. And, just to make it even more complicated, they would start rotating in one direction before having to change to rotating in the opposite one.

By the end of the day, Victor could do a passible twizzle, but a part of him trembled in fear at the thought of trying to figure out how to do one in synch with Yuuri.

He’d been so worried about it, in fact, that he’d admitted as much on their jog back together in the evening. The worry had grown inside him with every passing hour, impossible to suppress.

“I’m not good at skating in synch with you,” the words tumbled out of him in a jumble. “I’m scared that when we try the twizzles together I’ll mess the whole thing up.” He felt a brief sense of relief once the words were out and then a wave of panic followed. What would Yuuri think of him now? What would he say to this? He didn’t dare even look in Yuuri’s direction, scared that he would see disappointment on the man’s face.

“I’ve never had to skate in synch with anyone before this show,” Yuuri admitted slowly.

Victor’s head turned and he saw a little smile on Yuuri’s face.

“So let’s both try our best?” Yuuri completed.

Victor felt as if a heavy weight had lifted from his shoulders. “Yes,” he agreed with a strong wave of gratitude.

Yuuri really was incredible, Victor thought, catching glimpses of him and then letting his gaze linger for a little longer. Yuuri had a kind heart. Never once did he laugh at Victor or ridicule him.

Victor had spent too long pretending that he knew what people were talking about, too long afraid of ridicule or judgement. He _needed_ this, every single second of… He didn’t know what to call it. Acceptance? Understanding?

He’d spent years putting up a façade of success. His social media posts had been there to reinforce that. And this show had broken that façade.

He remembered with how much trepidation he’d checked his follower and subscriber counts after that first show aired. He’d expected everyone to turn their backs on him and lose their interest.

But for some reason they hadn’t. And for some reason they’d voted for him. And they went on voting for him. That sort of faith was frightening because it came with a responsibility.

 _I can’t let all that voting come to nothing,_ he thought, biting his lower lip and pushing his body onward. _I’ll get through this. I’ll – no, we’ll win – no…_ The image of Phichit and Christophe skating together flashed before his eyes. _No, winning is impossible, but I won’t end up in last place!_

“Good night!” Yuuri’s voice cut into his thoughts.

Victor stopped and turned to stare. So soon? The words almost slipped out, and he bit his lip in an attempt to keep them in.

“See you tomorrow!”

“Yes, see you tomorrow. Good night.” He raised his hand in farewell and watched Yuuri continue down the street to his apartment.

Only on the morning of the next day as Victor stepped out onto the ice did it occur to him just what he’d have to do for the twizzles to come out properly.

He and Yuuri would have to start spinning at exactly the same time, at the same speed and then finish together. He’d seen how quickly Yuuri could spin and with what ease. There was absolutely no way that he would be able to do the same thing.

“How do we…” he began and stopped. “How do we do this?” Was what he wanted to ask, but couldn’t.

“How do we stay synchronized?” Yuuri finished for him. “I thought about that last night and I think I have a solution.” Victor’s stomach did something strange as soon as he heard that Yuuri thought about him the previous night. “Do the twizzle and don’t worry about me. I’ll match what you’re doing.”

Victor agreed. He had no way of knowing if it was a good idea, or even if it sounded like a good idea, so he agreed on the reasoning that Yuuri knew what he was talking about.

 _But of course he can spin and follow me at the same time!_ Victor thought. After the videos he’d seen, he was willing to believe that figure skaters could do anything while skating.

They tried it. Victor went into a twizzle, concentrating all his efforts on getting it right as beside him Yuuri followed his steps (or he probably did: Victor didn’t look). He finished the rotations, counting them out in his head and came to a stop.

“How was that?” he asked.

Yuuri came to a stop beside him. “Let’s try that again.”

“Alright.”

He went on trying, again and again. Were they getting better? He had no idea. He could only hope that the answer was yes.

He had no idea how many times they went over the twizzles when a single clap interrupted them.

Victor stopped rotating and looked around for the source of the noise.

Yakov was standing by the boards, watching them practice.

“Good morning!” Yuuri and Victor called out. The words came out at the same time, making them both laugh.

“You’re practicing synchronization, I see,” Yakov noted, making them laugh a second time.

They skated over to join their coach.

“You two got so carried away that I was starting to think that I’d spend my whole time with you completely unnoticed.”

“Sorry,” Yuuri apologized and lowered his head.

“There’s no need for that,” Yakov assured him. “It was unsettling, that’s all.”

Victor had noticed a while back that Yakov favoured Yuuri over him. The coach was obviously doing his best not to let it show, but his preference would make itself known in little things here and there. Victor hadn’t really thought about it until the previous week. Now he couldn’t help wondering what the coach’s response would’ve been if he’d been the one to apologize.

“Victor, you need to get your twizzles to be consistent,” Yakov told him. “I’ll put the music on and you will follow it.”

“Right.” Victor did his best to look like he was ready.

The music began to play and Victor did his best to match his movements to it. It sounded simple enough, but he still had to think about what he was doing each time he did a twizzle.

The music stopped.

Victor and Yuuri stopped as well and looked at their coach, waiting for an explanation.

“You’re thinking too much about where your body needs to be!” Yakov barked at Victor. “Follow the music!” He put a different piece on. This one was a little faster.

Victor barely got through two twizzles before Yakov barked out. “Spin in the other direction!”

He did, not even bothering to check if Yuuri was doing the same thing.

Yakov’s music was picking up in pace. “Again!” he ordered. “Switch!”

They did. They went on like this – spinning faster and then slower, first in one direction and then in the other. Victor stumbled and fell a few times. He messed up the number of rotations, or spun in the wrong direction and Yakov pushed them on.

“Alright, that’s enough for now,” he declared.

Victor and Yuuri stopped. Victor felt ready to fall over. Beside him Yuuri looked at ease. _Of course he does,_ Victor thought, _he’s used to training like this._

“We break for lunch and then come back to try it again,” Yakov told them. “I’ll see you in one hour.”

Victor blinked. Yakov never spent this much time with them in one day! He met Yuuri’s eye and saw the man give a little shake of his head. They weren’t going to remind Yakov of this.

The coach was watching them closely, as if curious to see if they would say something about it. And then Victor realized that he was simply waiting for their response.

“Yes, coach,” he said.

Beside him Yuuri nodded.

“Good. I’ll see you after lunch.” And he left.

There was a brief silence while both of them stood still, as if unable to move. Finally Yuuri spoke, “All this reminds me of how I learned to do twizzles. Of course, I had more time to learn them.”

Victor stared after Yuuri as the skater left the rink.

More time… He would’ve had more time to learn, if he’d started trying earlier. He lowered his head with a sigh.

Yuuri returned from lunch, his head buzzing with thoughts. Yakov was putting Victor through training that seemed to be more than what was needed for just a show. _We want to do our best,_ he thought, _but Victor didn’t sign up to be a figure skater._ And then Yakov surprised them both by promising he would come back and spend the afternoon coaching them. _Is it true what they say about him?_ Yuuri wondered. _Is he the kind of coach that spent more time with skaters who show potential and less time with those who don’t?_

It was probably just a rumour, something a few of his students said to make themselves look better in other people’s eyes. True or not, Yuuri wasn’t about to tell Victor about it.

The change room was empty, but his brain hardly registered the fact, so busy was he with his thoughts. He put his skates on and made for the rink, realizing too late that maybe he ought to have waited for Victor first.

But Victor didn’t need someone to wait for him: he was already out on the ice.

Yuuri watched him practice twizzles to the music playing on his phone. How did he get back so fast?

Victor stumbled and fell on the ice. He pushed himself up to his feet and kept going, but he went on making mistakes. Some of them were silly mistakes he hadn’t been making in a long time. They made Yuuri frown and wonder what was happening.

And then he watched Victor stop to get his breath back and understanding dawned.

But before he could say anything, Yakov arrived, making Yuuri panic and wonder what he should do.

“Yuuri?” the coach called. “Why aren’t you practicing with Victor?”

Yuuri turned to face him. “We can’t practice right now,” he said.

“What?” he heard Victor exclaim.

 _I’m sorry._ Yuuri forced himself to meet Victor’s eye. “You’ve been practicing all through lunch, haven’t you?”

A guilty expression crossed Victor’s face.

“You need to rest, Victor,” Yuuri insisted. “It’s not good to push yourself too much.”

“Yuuri is right,” Yakov agreed. “Victor, go rest for two hours. Yuuri and I –”

“What!” Victor exclaimed, interrupting Yakov mid-sentence. “I can’t rest now! We only have three days left before our skate. What if we get the twizzles wrong? What if I fall –”

Yuuri went out onto the ice and caught Victor gently by the hands, silencing him without saying a word.

Victor blinked at him in confusion.

“Victor,” Yuuri said soothingly, “you’re tired. You need to rest for a little bit, or you might injure yourself.” He saw Victor’s face turn pale at those words. “I’d rather you messed up the twizzles in the skate than broke a leg,” Yuuri added and smiled at Victor, hoping his words hadn’t come out too harsh.

Victor stared at him. He opened his mouth and then closed it again.

“Please,” Yuuri added and felt a little foolish.

“Listen to Yuuri,” Yakov said. “We’ll continue in two hours. Go rest until then.”

Victor’s gaze went from Yuuri to Yakov and then back again, as if he was waiting for one of them to change his mind, but when another of them did, he gave a little sigh. “Alright.”

Yuuri released him and Victor left the skating rink.

Both Yuuri and Yakov watched him go without saying a word.

Once Victor was gone, Yakov gave his head a little shake. “I never thought I’d be telling him to take a break from training!”

Yuuri smiled. He felt exactly the same way.

When Victor returned to the skating rink he found Yuuri skating something that looked very different from the routine they were practicing. It looked a lot more complicated, for one thing, but also it was…

“Beautiful…” he breathed out, leaning on the boards.

Yuuri darted across the ice, feet moving incredibly fast. He jumped into the air and spun. Victor tried to count the number of rotations he made, remembering that in figure skating that was important. Was it three or four? He wasn’t sure. Yuuri had been moving so fast!

Yuuri landed and drifted across the ice with a blissful smile on his lips.

Victor raised his hands to clap, but stopped himself just in time. He didn’t want to interrupt. He wanted to watch Yuuri for a little bit longer.

Applause filled the air. “Well done,” Yakov called in a voice that sounded almost as if he was scolding Yuuri. “That was a perfect quad flip!”

Yuuri’s face flushed with happiness.

 _What am I doing here?_ Victor suddenly thought. _What is Yuuri doing here? Why doesn’t he compete with other figure skaters in those proper competitions? Why is he_ here _?_

Yuuri turned his head and spotted Victor. “You’re back!” he skated over to join Victor, the big happy smile still on his face. “Did you get some rest?”

Victor nodded, blinded by that smile and unable to find his voice.

“Sorry I got a little carried away,” Yuuri went on. “I started out practicing our routine, but then I decided to practice other elements and well…” he trailed off.

“There’s nothing to apologize for,” Victor assured him. “I wouldn’t object to watching you skate some more.”

Yuuri lowered his eyes. “We should practice. We don’t have a lot of time left…”

He wondered if Yuuri was offended by his words.

 _Stupid!_ he chided himself. _He’ll think I’m skipping out again! Just focus on what you came here to do!_

But it was easier said than done. As they resumed practicing twizzles Victor became acutely aware of just how awkward his own movements were. How jarring it must be for Yuuri who was so graceful!

Again he thought of his first weeks practicing for the show, how he’d barely tried and how arrogant he’d been! How did Yuuri put up with him? It was certainly a mystery.

Now Yuuri was telling him to take breaks and not push himself so hard. Victor wanted to laugh. He should’ve known that there would be no way to compensate for all that time he’d lost! What was he supposed to do now?

It was the night of the next round and, once again, they were up for elimination, which meant waiting for the results of the vote to come in so they could determine which pair would be leaving after tonight. He’d had a hard time falling asleep the night before: he’d turned over and over in his bed, worrying about whether or not he and Yuuri would make it to the next round. What if this time the viewers decided not to save them? What if they decided to vote for the other pair? But they couldn’t. Not after all that hard work he’d put in!

Now he worried again, wishing the hosts would just get on with it and finish talking. He knew they would try to fool everyone with the numbers again, and he was trying to brace himself for what he would see.

“And the results of this week’s vote are…”

The numbers jumped to show 90% for him and Yuuri. And then they fell.

Victor’s heart stopped. He stared at the numbers, unable to look away.

80%

_It’s ok. We’re still winning._

70%

_They will stop now. They will stop soon._

60%

_Just stop now, please. Please, stop._

The numbers slowed down, as if they didn’t want to change, as if they’d heard Victor and were doing their best to do what he’d asked. A whole eternity seemed to pass between 55 and 54, another between 54 and 53. But they were _still_ changing.

51%

_It’s not going to stop, is it?_

50%

_This is it. Our luck has run out. They’re tired of us._

49%

 _I can’t believe it._ Victor turned away. He couldn’t look. He didn’t want to see that they’d lost 51-49, or watch the numbers drop even further.

He looked at Yuuri who must’ve had the same thought because he was staring at his feet as if they were the most fascinating thing in the world.

 _This is it,_ it hit Victor. _We’re going to skate now and then we will leave the show. There won’t be any more figure skating for me. Yuuri will go back to his competitions and I’ll go back to New York to my job._ He could picture it all in vivid detail now, down to the way Yuuri would smile at him when they said goodbye.

Was it really over so fast?

 _I need more time!_ The thought flashed through his mind in a panic. _Just a little more, please!_

A scream went up from the audience, which meant that the numbers had stopped changing and the names of the people lucky enough to stay on the show were displayed for the world to see.

He raised his head, feeling as if he was looking at his death sentence.

Yuuri and Victor: 72%.

He blinked, but the number didn’t change. Was he hallucinating?

He stared at Yuuri in confusion, as if expecting some sort of explanation.

Yuuri smiled at him. “Looks like we’re still in.”

They were still in. He stared at the numbers again. How did he ever doubt it? The viewers had voted for them when he could barely get through their routine and now that he was much better, what reason would they have for turning for him?

A wave of confidence rose inside him. They could do this, he thought. They could make it to the final. People had voted to keep them on before. They would definitely go on supporting them now!

The confidence was intoxicating, as if he was drunk. It made him feel as if he could do anything at all. It felt _good_.

He turned to Yuuri again to share this thought with him, but Yuuri was watching the other pair get ready to go out on the ice and skate for the last time.

“We can do this,” Victor whispered, eager to get the words out anyway.

The expression on Yuuri’s face was complicated, but he didn’t say anything.

 _We can do this,_ Victor thought. _I’m sure we can! Yuuri is just being modest. I’ll keep trying my hardest and we’ll do it!_

He watched the pair that was leaving skate their farewells and the certainty crystalized in his mind. The viewers had gone on voting for them even though, up until now at least, the other pair skated better than they did. They were really in for a surprise this time!

He couldn’t resist the urge to grin as it occurred to him that his and Yuuri’s routine was more difficult than theirs. Maybe they could finally get enough points to catch up to the rest of the skaters!

But next on the ice was the pair currently tied with another one for first place: Phichit Chulanont and Christophe Giacometti.

Different-coloured lights shone down on the ice as a catchy tune began to play. Phichit and Christophe stepped out onto the ice. Both of them were in short beaded dresses that glittered under the lights.

“ _Give ‘em the old razzle dazzle_.”

Victor felt his mouth fall open. The audience clapped and sang along while he simply stared. _This_ is what they should’ve picked – a fun, upbeat song with a routine that wouldn’t leave the audience impassive.

He thought of their own routine. They’d spent so much effort trying to master all the elements that it wasn’t until the day before they were supposed to film that Yakov pointed out that they’d completely forgotten about the presentation.

Victor’s head filled with everything the old coach had said as he’d described the kind of relationship Victor and Yuuri were trying to portray. He thought of the embarrassed laughter that had escaped from him and Yuuri and of how hard it had been for them to get this routine right.

On the ice, Christophe climbed onto Phichit and spun around him as if it was the easiest thing in the world.

There was just no way that Victor would be able to skate with such abandon. Maybe it was a good thing that they hadn’t settled on a routine like theirs.

The music ended and the pair on the ice froze with a triumphant flourish. The audience roared in approval.

“Ready?” Yuuri asked beside him.

Victor tore his gaze away from the pair out on the ice. He did his best to smile. He’d felt so confident before, but now there wasn’t even a trace of that confidence. How were they supposed to skate after that?

Still, Yuuri was waiting for his answer.

“Yes,” he lied.

Yuuri held out his hand, the expression in his eyes going soft. Victor stared for several seconds before it dawned on him what he had to do.

He placed his hand in Yuuri’s. His heart hammered in his chest.

“Let’s go,” the words were said in a low voice. They were a call that Victor couldn’t resist.

He followed Yuuri out onto the ice, as if under a spell. The spell only broken when Yakov spoke up.

“Remember what we talked about,” he said in a low voice as they passed by him.

They both nodded.

Yuuri’s movements were delicate. He offered Victor his arm and then led the way around the rink, as if he was showing it to Victor for the first time.

Victor remembered watching period dramas where the main two characters attended a ball and felt the blood rise to his face.

_He’s just getting into character. It’s just to get the presentation right._

But Yuuri had never done this before and Victor wasn’t ready for all the images that flooded his brain as a result.

Yuuri brought him to a spot in front of the judges where they turned to face each other and assume their initial pose.

Yuuri’s eyes were bigger than the whole world and they were breathtakingly beautiful. Had Victor ever noticed before that they were brown? How had he missed such an important detail? There was a question in those eyes now.

“Ready?” Yuuri whispered.

 _For what? Oh yes – the skate!_ He felt foolish as he remembered where he was and what he was supposed to be doing.

And then the music began to play.

Throughout every run-through they’d done of this routine Victor found that most of the time he was thinking about the elements: about what he needed to do next and how he would do it.

But this time it was as if a switch had been flicked in his head. He couldn’t take his eyes off Yuuri and, for a moment, he had the strange thought, _Will he wait for me, if I have to leave?_

They were facing each other, drifting over the ice and Victor could barely remember where they were and what they were supposed to be doing.

Yuuri bent his head ever so slightly to the side, as a smile spread over his face.

 _Will he wait?_ the question echoed again in his head.

 _Wait? Wait for what? I’m not going anywhere!_ Victor thought.

And then his heart sank as he remembered that this was all temporary. _I’m not a figure skater. I have to go back to my regular life when the show ends._

The twizzles were coming up next and he tried his best to focus on them. _Think about the character you’re playing,_ he told himself. _You don’t want Yuuri to leave. You’re scared he will forget you._

_Will he forget me when we’re separated?_

The music was so filled with the longing of the two lovers that Victor thought he could feel his own heart breaking.

And then it was time for the twizzles. But his mind was elsewhere and he could feel tears welling up in his eyes. He spun without really thinking about what he was doing. He let his body take him through the movements.

They joined again and Victor felt his heart leap in his chest.

The word “leaving” echoed through his head again, making him stumble.

Yuuri steadied him. His lips smiled, but his eyes were full of alarm.

 _I’m letting myself get carried away,_ Victor thought ruefully. _And now I’ve disappointed him_.

He forced himself to think of the skate and nothing else after that. He needed to do this right. He didn’t want to leave the show. He would stay until the very end.

There was a moment then when their heads came close together. For some reason, despite how many times they’d gone over the routine, he was very conscious of it now.

 _We should’ve added a kiss to the routine,_ he thought and regretted thinking it as soon as the idea occurred to him. It was only making it harder to focus. He could barely suppress a sigh of relief when he made it to the end of the routine.

Now all he had to do was hope that the judges would be kind to them.

Yuuri was very pleased with Victor’s skating. It hadn’t been flawless, but it was a big improvement from his skating last time. In fact, it was a lot better than Yuuri had ever expected from someone with no figure skating background.

 _A few months ago he could barely stand on skates without falling over,_ Yuuri reminded himself.

There was an apology in Victor’s eyes, mixed with a feeling of guilt, as if he’d made a big mistake.

“That was very good,” Yuuri reassured him in a low voice.

A smile spread over Victor’s face. “Really?”

“Really.” Yuuri nodded.

Victor gave a little sigh of relief. He looked away and then met Yuuri’s eye again. “We should’ve added a kiss to the routine.”

Yuuri stared, feeling the blood rise to his cheeks.

“You know – to show that the two characters are in love with each other,” Victor said. He looked away as he spoke, sounding dismissive about the whole thing, as if he was talking about a figure skating element.

In a flash, Yuuri remembered Victor’s rant about the woman from the movie, how she should’ve stayed loyal to her lover. Yet, here he was – suggesting they kiss as if kisses meant nothing!

 _Hypocrite!_ he thought as he did his best to keep his face impassive. _How can you say that? How can you talk about us kissing as if it’s a lift or a twizzle we should’ve added in?_

He’d seen lots of figure skating routines. He knew that pairs sometimes kissed on the ice to reinforce how passionate the feelings behind the routine were, but he’d never been bothered by that.

No, it wasn’t that. It was the way Victor didn’t look at him and how off-handed his words sounded.

 _Don’t confuse me with the men you meet through the HotDate App,_ Yuuri wanted to say, but bit the words back. His face felt like it was on fire. He could feel himself hovering on the verge of doing something stupid.

And then they reached the exit from the rink and Yuuri suddenly felt as if he was seeing things from the outside.

 _Why am I so angry? Why do I care if Victor thinks kissing is no big deal? Lots of people think that._ But for some reason, anger still burned in the pit of his stomach.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I already wrote about this routine in my Tessa and Scott AU (Twenty Years with You), but I couldn’t resist the urge to mention it again. [Here is the video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRjqNbM9RHM), in case you haven’t seen it.


	7. Eros

That morning was bleak – the sky was dark and covered with clouds that threatened with rain. Yuuri didn’t like mornings like this: too often they meant that he wouldn’t get to take his usual long route through the park. Sometimes he would be forced to take a change of clothes with him, knowing there was no way he would be dry when he arrived at the skating rink.

Yuuri stared out at the sky for several moments, hoping that the sky would clear, but instead rain began to patter against the windows.

With a sigh, Yuuri stepped away and prepared some dry clothes for him to change into at the rink.

Once he finished, he walked over to his desk and opened his journal to see what the theme for this week was going to be.

 _Mythology_ , he’d written what felt like a lifetime ago.

He closed the journal and made for the door.

Mythology. What were they supposed to come up with for a theme like that? Would Victor arrive armed with an idea like he’d done last time? Or…

Victor. The thought of the man made him think of his comment about kissing and Yuuri felt an echo of his anger from before.

But then he thought of how Victor’s face lit up when he saw how many points they’d gotten for their skating. He’d looked ready to celebrate and even Yakov had murmured his congratulations to them.

It was just a shame that when all the other pairs had their turn to go out on the ice the total scores put Yuuri and Victor back at the bottom of the scoreboard.

 _There’s just no way we can catch up,_ Yuuri thought. _We are too far behind now. The other pairs would have to make a lot of mistakes and get very low scores over the next two shows…_

And then it occurred to him that there were only two rounds left, after which whoever didn’t get eliminated in the final round would get to perform in the gala that followed. That gala was when they would announce the winner.

Yuuri shook his head. It was a miracle they’d managed to stay in the show for this long, a miracle and nothing more. They wouldn’t make it to that final round. There was just no way that they would.

He packed his things, pulled on his shoes and then put on his jacket. Then he paused in the doorway to throw one last look at the room to see if he’d forgotten anything.

The room looked emptier than ever. How many days had he spent here on his own? For a moment he closed his eyes, overwhelmed by the sudden feeling of loneliness.

And then it passed.

Yuuri’s thoughts jumped back to the question that had bothered him earlier: what would they skate for their next theme? Will it be a Greek myth? Would they play the parts of the gods? Or would they skate one of those old creation myths that explained why the world was the way it was. He was no expert on mythology, but he’d seen a few movies based on myths.

 _Maybe it’s my turn to come up with an idea,_ Yuuri thought, but he couldn’t think of something relevant that he wanted to skate. He couldn’t even remember ever seeing someone skate something related to mythology in a competition.

He descended the staircase and left the building, his mind preoccupied with this question. He was so lost in his thoughts that when Victor exclaimed “Good morning!” Yuuri was startled to discover that he was already at their usual meeting spot.

“Good morning,” Yuuri said in return and did his best to look happy to see him. The sight of Victor brought back the memory of all the anger he’d felt. Why was he so angry? He still couldn’t find an explanation for his feelings.

 _Because it contradicts what he said before,_ Yuuri told himself, but for some reason he remained unconvinced.

“Have you thought about what we’ll skate for the next theme?” Victor asked.

“I couldn’t think of anything,” Yuuri admitted.

“Me too,” Victor confessed. “I don’t know anything about mythology, to be honest.”

Yuuri studied him out of the corner of his eye.

“I tried to find something, but…” Victor looked away. “There’s just so much to choose from.”

Yuuri nodded. That was very true. From what little he’d heard and seen, he was convinced that each country had dozens of myths on all sorts of topics. To choose something, they’d have to take a crash course in all of them.

Would Yakov arrive with something already prepared, or expect them to come up with their own routine like they’d done last time? Sort of done, he mentally amended, remembering how they’d borrowed from an already-existing routine.

He glanced at Victor again, but couldn’t bring himself to say the question aloud.

Victor had spent the previous night watching The Odyssey and trying to imagine how they could skate it. Could they make a routine about the hero’s long journey home? Or maybe they could skate something about Penelope waiting for her husband? But, for some reason, he couldn’t picture how they would do it. The part that had thrilled him most (Odyssey’s incredible return with his miraculous shot) couldn’t be done on ice.

He remained silent during the whole jog. Not long after they met up, the rain turned from a light drizzle to a downpour.

Yuuri opened his umbrella and, for a moment, Victor hesitated, wishing Yuuri would offer to share the umbrella. But, no, it was a silly thought – they wouldn’t be comfortable under one umbrella, not if they wanted to keep jogging through this rain.

Victor opened his own.

Usually he didn’t mind the rain. After all, he spent most of his time indoors and, so, it didn’t matter to him what the weather outside was. But now he found that he didn’t like the rain at all. The umbrellas forced them to jog a little bit apart from each other and it was hard to talk over the sound of raindrops drumming against their umbrellas.

It was a strange sensation to know that Yuuri was beside him while being left alone with his thoughts against his will.

“Let’s stop here!” Yuuri shouted over the noise and then grabbed Victor’s hand to pull him into a bus stop.

They stood in the little glass shelter and watched the rain continue to fall all around them.

“I brought a change of clothes,” Yuuri said, indicating the bag slung over his shoulder.

Victor hadn’t. His phone had warned him about the forecast, but he’d dressed for jogging not for walking out into a downpour and he hadn’t even considered what he would do if his clothing got soaked. “I didn’t,” he admitted, feeling foolish.

“You can’t go skating in wet clothes,” Yuuri pointed out. “You’ll catch a cold.”

Victor couldn’t argue with that, but he could only think of one thing he could do now and it didn’t sit well with him. “Should I… Should I go back and get a change of clothes too?” he asked.

“I think it would be a good idea,” Yuuri nodded. “Why don’t you go change and then drive to the rink? I’ll wait for you there.”

But his mind painted him a completely different image: Yuuri offering to come with him, Yuuri coming up to his rooms and…

He blinked.

Yuuri was watching him with an innocent smile on his face.

Victor felt embarrassed and very, very foolish. “Right,” he said. “I’ll… um… see you there?”

“Yep!”

Victor braced himself for another drenching, raised the umbrella over his head and ran out into the rain.

It felt colder this time, maybe because he was already drenched, or maybe because he was all alone. He did his best not to dwell on that for long. He had to get home quickly, change just as quickly and go to the rink. It was easy enough.

But when he got back to his apartment, he couldn’t help thinking about how empty the place was. There was something sad about that.

He tossed his clothes off and went for a towel to dry himself before pulling on something else.

Then he hurried to the skating rink as quickly as he could.

It felt wrong to drive there. After so many days – he had to stop there and think a bit – had it really been only two weeks? After two weeks of jogging to the rink it felt wrong to drive to it.

As he drove now he wondered how he could’ve possibly driven to skating practice all those times.

Rain fell all around the car, making him feel as if the world was far away somewhere, as if he was the only person left.

The drive to the rink felt too long, and when he ran inside he felt as if a whole day had passed since he’d left Yuuri at that bus stop.

But, despite how much time he’d thought had passed, he entered the change room just as Yuuri began putting his skates on.

They went out onto the ice together and waited together for their coach to come and tell them what their next routine would be.

Yakov didn’t make them wait long and – what was more important in Victor’s mind, he came with an idea for them.

“And what routine will you present to me this time?” he asked by way of a greeting, seeing the way they rushed to greet him.

“We don’t have one,” Victor admitted, feeling guilty.

“We couldn’t think of anything,” Yuuri added, as if he was determined to share the blame.

“Oh dear,” Yakov said and gave a soft chuckle. “Good thing I came prepared then, hmm?”

Victor nodded, feeling like a schoolboy caught breaking the rules.

“You’re going to be skating the myth of Eros and Psyche.”

Victor blinked. Had he heard that right? Eros? Were they going to skate something erotic?

“Yuuri will skate the part of Eros and Victor will be Psyche,” Yakov went on.

“Yuuri? Really?” Victor snuck a quick glance at Yuuri’s innocent face. The man nodded with a serious expression on his face and Victor had to suppress the urge to laugh. Yuuri play the erotic part? Why did Yakov think that was a good idea? Victor had watched lots of videos of Yuuri skating and never once had he skated something erotic.

 _I was voted hottest model lots of times,_ Victor thought. _Yakov should let me do it. Or does he think that I can’t?_ That was a troubling thought.

The silence lasted for several moments before Yakov gave a sigh and asked, “Have you ever heard the myth of Eros and Psyche?”

Eros was the god of love, but even gods of love aren’t immune to falling in love themselves. Eros’ chosen one was Psyche – a mortal woman, who he visited in secret, not wanting to reveal to her the truth behind his identity. They met at night, under the cover of darkness, but one night curiosity got the better of Psyche and she lit a candle to take a closer look at her lover only to discover it to be Eros himself. She was so startled that she wounded herself with one of Eros’ arrows and fell deeply in love with him. But oil spilled from her lamp, wounding Eros and making him run away.

It was a nice story, especially for anyone who liked stories about a secret romance, but Yuuri could help wondering just how they would skate something like that.

“Maybe you can wear a cloak?” Victor suggested. “And then I will throw it off you and reveal who you are.”

“I’d have to wear the cloak for half of the skate, though,” Yuuri pointed out. “It might not stay on the whole time.”

“What about a mask?” Victor suggested next. “You can wear a mask and then I’ll take it off you.” He frowned. “It won’t be accurate to the skate, but the meaning will be the same.”

“I don’t have any objectives to that,” Yuuri agreed. It sounded like the best they could do to show this story. “What about the next part?” Yuuri asked after a brief pause, hoping he wasn’t coming across as being difficult. “How will we show the quest?”

After Eros ran away, Psyche went on a quest to be reunited with him again, but how could they possibly show that in a skating routine?

“Hmm…” Victor frowned and stared at Yakov, hoping to get an answer from him.

The old coach didn’t look very troubled by this question. “We’ll think of something,” he promised.

“We could have Victor skate on his own for a while,” Yuuri mused aloud.

Victor didn’t look very thrilled by this idea, even though he told Yuuri that it sounded like a good one.

 _He can skate on his own,_ Yuuri thought, _so I don’t see why not._

Yakov hadn’t just brought them an idea: he’d brought them music to skate to as well and, armed with all that, Yuuri and Victor began putting together a routine that would suit both.

It wasn’t easy and lead to a lot of discussions, but Yuuri found himself enjoying every minute of their talk about the elements in their skate.

Victor still had trouble remembering what the elements were called, but he didn’t let that stop him: he merely described what element he thought should come next, resorting to hand gestures whenever he ran out of words. Yuuri hardly dared to interrupt even to do something as simple as suggest the word Victor was looking for.

When they broke up for lunch, Yuuri found himself walking away with regret in his heart.

 _Lunch will be over soon,_ he told himself and was surprised by this thought.

It was actually fun to skate with Victor now!

Yuuri marvelled at this change as he went home. Victor had made Yuuri laugh a few times with his silly gestures! If someone had told Yuuri a month ago that he and Victor would be laughing at jokes together he wouldn’t have believed them and, yet, here they were.

Much to his own surprise, he found himself smiling as he walked home. His heart felt light in his chest and in that moment he thanked his past self for signing up for Skating with the Stars.

He didn’t even worry about winning, just this – having fun like this was enough for him.

An odd thought occurred to him then, one that hadn’t even occurred to him when he’d watched Tessa and Scott skate: _Maybe I should’ve trained with another figure skated to be an ice dancer._

But, no, that was just a silly thought.

Victor returned to the change room before Yuuri. He checked his notifications on his phone and played a short game while he waited for Yuuri to return. As soon as the sound of his footsteps broke the silence, Victor hid his phone and started pulling his skates on as if he’d just returned.

“Hello, Victor,” Yuuri greeted him. His face glowed as if he’d just heard very good news, or as if something great had just happened to him.

Victor wondered if it was right to ask what it was. But he worried that the beautiful smile would vanish from Yuuri’s face and Yuuri would get offended by the question. Best to stick to the plan he’d come up with on his lunch break.

More than anything, he wanted to watch Yuuri skate again. It hadn’t occurred to him until recently that watching someone skate in person was very different to watching them skate on a screen. But now that he _had_ realized it, he longed to see more.

He finished putting his skates on, waited for Yuuri to do the same and together they made for the rink.

As luck would have it, Yakov hadn’t returned from his break yet. Victor took it as an encouraging sign.

As soon as they reached the rink, Victor gave Yuuri an apologetic smile. “I’m still a little tired,” he lied. “Why don’t you start training and I’ll join you in a few minutes?”

Yuuri gave him a worried look. “You shouldn’t push yourself too hard if you’re tired. Do you want to go take a short nap?”

“No, no,” Victor protested, shaking his head and feeling guilt rise in his chest. “I’ll just stand here,” he indicated the boards.

“Why don’t you sit down, at least?”

Victor gave in, worried that if he didn’t Yuuri would get suspicious. He wanted to watch Yuuri skate, but he couldn’t ask him for a demonstration, not after all those times he’d asked for one just so he could record Yuuri.

 _He’ll think that I want to post videos of him,_ Victor thought as he dropped into a seat and gave Yuuri a little smile to show that he was alright. _He’ll think I’m doing all this for views and likes._

Yuuri stepped out onto the ice like someone returning home. Whenever they stepped out together, they would start out slow, going around in a circle to give Victor a change to regain a feel for the ice. Even after all this time, he struggled for those first few seconds to regain his feet. But Yuuri didn’t need any of that. He could go from a step out onto the ice to a fast sprint across the rink in a matter of seconds.

Yuuri jumped, spun around and landed, arms spread wide, one leg raised. He smiled as if the jump filled him with joy, as if revelling in the bliss of the moment.

Victor couldn’t look away, he hardly dared to breathe. He watched closely, following each of Yuuri’s movements as if he didn’t dare miss a single one. Who could blame him when every single thing Yuuri did out on the ice was done perfectly? It was hard to resist the urge to applaud every time Yuuri successfully landed a jump, so Victor sat on his hands as he watched. He didn’t want to remind Yuuri that he was there.

Yuuri’s movements changed. They became less random, as if he’d gained a purpose of some kind. His skating was telling a story now, but Victor struggled to understand what it was.

Yuuri stopped and raised both arms above his head.

Victor leaned forward, drinking in the sight.

Then, without warning, Yuuri’s feet moved quickly as he turned and danced. There was no music playing, but if someone had pointed out as much to Victor in that moment, he would’ve argued that, on the contrary, there was very beautiful music playing.

Watching Yuuri was like being lost in a dream, the kind of dream that you never wanted to end.

But end it did and mostly abruptly too: Yakov strode in, startling Victor out of his reverie and making him rush to return to the ice.

The coach rewarded Victor with a suspicious look and Victor was prepared to swear that the old man could see right through him.

The next few days were spent bringing the story to life, but, if at first it was fun, as they got nearer the date of the skate Victor found it harder to focus on skating and not on Yuuri who was oh-so-tantalizingly close.

The day before their recording sessions ignoring Yuuri’s charm became impossible. They put on their costumes so they could do a couple of run-throughs in them before the show itself and stood facing each other in the change room.

Victor’s eye strayed down to Yuuri’s revealed collarbone and then they slid to the side to rest on Yuuri’s bare shoulder. The designer of their costumes had muttered something about the lack of historical accuracy, but he hadn’t cared enough to listen.

The togas were short, ending in something like a skirt that just barely reached their knees. For ease of movement, apparently, but Victor’s mind was too busy thinking about Yuuri’s bare legs and his exposed collarbone and shoulders.

Yuuri shifted from side to side and stared down at himself, adjusting the costume. “I never thought I’d go skating in a toga.”

Victor forced his eyes to return to Yuuri’s face and gave a little laugh. “Me neither.”

“It suits you,” Yuuri said and Victor felt his cheeks redden. He wanted Yuuri to reach out and touch him, but how could he ask for something like that?

“Thanks.” The word felt dry on his lips and very, very inadequate.

Yuuri’s eyes swept down over him and Victor felt warmer. _Just keep looking at me,_ he thought.

“Um…” Yuuri said after a silence that was far too warm and far too short. “Um… We should go… go skate…”

 _Do we have to?_ Was Victor’s first thought and then he realized what that meant: Yuuri would have to touch him then. His skin tingled. “Yes, yes, we should go practice!” he exclaimed. He did his best to look innocent and not at all like he was anticipating the press of Yuuri’s hand against his bare skin.

He turned around to lead the way.

“Victor?”

“What?” he asked, turning and feeling stunned by the sight of Yuuri once more.

“You haven’t put your skates on.”

That night Victor lay in bed and thought about that day’s practice. He closed his eyes and a smile spread over his face. How could anyone not smile after a day like his had been?

He could still picture Yuuri’s bare shoulders and the curve of his neck. He could remember the feel of Yuuri’s hands on his bare skin, the way he took Victor’s face into his hands as Victor’s heart beat faster, the excitement that went up his spine when their bare arms brushed against each other.

Victor curled up under the blankets, feeling like a teenager again. He tried to remember everything Yuuri had said to him that day and the way he’d looked when he’d said it.

He could picture what would happen next so clearly in his mind it was as if it was already happening. Tomorrow they would pour their hearts out on the ice, skating like they’d never skated before. The judges would give them lots of points and finally, _finally_ they wouldn’t be the ones up for elimination anymore. They wouldn’t have to rely on the viewers to vote for them.

Yuuri would look at him with those beautiful eyes of his and say, “That was incredible! I’ve never seen anyone skate like that before!”

Victor would pretend it was nothing. “It was all thanks to you,” he would add and then Yuuri would lean forward and he would…

Sleep washed over Victor before he could finish that thought.

The day of the recording of the skate started off well: Victor arrived feeling well-rested and ready to give his best out on the ice. The viewers saved them again and the results of the vote (80% for Yuuri and Victor) helped him gain more confidence in what they were about to do.

Maybe that confidence was responsible, or perhaps it was simply Victor’s mind – always ready to fill with all kinds of thoughts of Yuuri – that was to blame for the disaster that followed.

They were in their costumes and getting ready to go out on the ice when Yakov began their pre-skate lecture. “Keep your minds focused on the skate,” he said as if he could see that Victor’s thoughts were beginning to stray to thinking about how well Yuuri’s costume suited him. “You can worry about other things once you’re off the ice.”

Other things. Victor had a million things to think and worry about, beginning with this skate and ending with…

 _Maybe I can invite Yuuri to go out with me after this. We could go have dinner together, or go for drinks, or something,_ he thought, doing his best to not remember what a disaster his last invitation had ended with.

There was no time now to think about all that, however. Now he had to concentrate on the skate, just like Yakov had said.

 _Concentrate_ , he told himself as he stepped out onto the ice and took Yuuri’s hand. They went around the rink, waving up at the audience.

Was it his imagination, or did the applause sound warmer this time? He smiled up at them and then lowered his head and let his eyes return to Yuuri’s face.

Yuuri was glowing. Someone had covered his skin with sparkles and there was a mask over his face that lent him an air of mystery that was impossible to ignore.

He felt his focus slip out of his grasp and they hadn’t even started skating yet!

They split up and made for different sides of the rink to take their initial positions. Yuuri came to Victor, rolling his shoulders in a way that was impossible to ignore, took him by the hands and led him across the ice.

 _Think about the skate,_ Victor ordered himself, but he found it impossible to ignore the glow of Yuuri’s eyes behind the mask. He let Yuuri carry him and pick him up a little off the ice to spin him around. His legs felt weak under him.

_Focus!_

Victor reached out, his hand trembling and pulled the mask off Yuuri’s face. A beam of light shone down on Yuuri, making him glow even brighter.

Victor backed away in surprise.

Was it his imagination, or was there a mischievous spark in Yuuri’s eyes?

Yuuri went around him in a panicked circle and then disappeared into a corner of the rink that was plunged in darkness.

Now came the hardest part: Victor’s quest, his struggles alone. He stumbled down the ice, his head still filled with images of Yuuri’s face and his legs refused to obey him. He made mistakes, each one striking him like a punch to the gut.

_Focus!_

He could see Yuuri’s disappointed face in his mind. He could imagine how frustrated he must feel with Victor. He would wonder why Victor was making so many mistakes now when he’d skated this part reasonably well in practice.

_Focus!_

But the thought of Yuuri’s disappointment was only making it harder for Victor to keep thinking only about the skate.

The quest was supposed to end in triumph, but instead it ended with Victor stumbling into Yuuri’s arms and then the two of them were going around the rink together.

“Are you alright?” Yuuri whispered as they got to the last element.

“Yes,” Victor lied and they spun together on the ice as the music reached the last note.

They froze in a pose meant to symbolize a wedding and Victor closed his eyes. His heart hammered in his chest.

_I messed up. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry._

The audience applauded, but there wasn’t much excitement in their applause, certainly not as much as there had been when Christophe and Phichit had skated their routine, which had turned out perfectly as usual.

They separated and bowed as the audience clapped.

Victor didn’t dare meet Yuuri’s eye. _I’m sorry._

They finished their bows and made for the kiss and cry. Yakov stood with his arms crossed over his chest and an angry expression on his face.

He felt Yuuri squeeze his hand and a wave of surprise rose inside him. How could Yuuri be trying to reassure him after all those mistakes he’d made?

Victor hung his head and braced himself for a lecture from Yakov.

But Yakov said nothing. He merely sat in stony silence as the judges considered what marks to give them and somehow that was worse.

 _We’re not going to make it to the final,_ Victor thought miserably, _and all because I couldn’t stay focused for a few minutes! What’s wrong with me?_

The scoreboard changed and Victor felt his heart go cold.

“I’m disappointed with Victor’s skating today,” the main judge said, taking the microphone in her hands. “Over the last few weeks, we have seen Victor grow as a figure skater, but today was a step backwards.”

Victor lowered his head.

“I had expected you to surprise me today. I had hoped for much more,” she concluded and passed the microphone to one of the other judges.

This was the part that Victor had never learned to cope with. Not only did they grade his skating, but then they discussed it too, as if determined to make it worse. The last few times they’d praised him, but the compliments had never come from the head judge and they’d always sounded a little fake to his ears, like people trying to find something polite to say about something they’d hated, but now…

_I’m so sorry._

He felt someone give his shoulder a squeeze and realized with a start that it was Yuuri. Sweet Yuuri who was still trying to reassure him!

_I screwed up! You should be mad at me! You don’t need to show me any pity!_

The judges seemed to agree on this as they got into a detailed discussion of everything he’d done wrong on the ice.

Victor didn’t remember how he made it back home. The whole way back all he could see was the scoreboard with his and Yuuri’s names at the very bottom, the gap in the points between them and the next pair up as wide as it had been after their first skate.

That night for the first time in a long while he went to a bar and got very, very drunk.

He didn’t just go to any bar. Before he could change his mind, before the reasonable part of his mind could tell him that it was a bad idea, he walked out of his apartment and headed to the bar with the pole dancers that had cheered him up so well before.

As luck would have it, it was pole dancing night, but he arrived early, before the working 9 to 5 crowd could arrive and before the dancing began.

 _I’m so sorry,_ he thought, picturing Yuuri’s sad face as the barman handed him his first drink.

He downed it in one gulp and felt even sorrier for himself. He was so pathetic! He didn’t even have someone to drink with, someone to tell him that it wasn’t his fault, that somehow it would all turn out to be okay. There wasn’t even anyone to stop him, or to drive him home when he was done.

“Here’s to Victor Nikiforov,” he toasted, raising his second drink, “pathetic to the last.”

He downed the next shot and saw the barman shaking his head at him. “Don’t you have someone to keep you warm on a Friday evening? Someone better than a bottle of vodka?”

Victor smiled bitterly. “No.”

The barman gave him a pitying look. “Oh dear! If handsome men like you can’t find someone, what are the rest of us supposed to do?”

Victor resisted the urge to laugh. If only things had been that easy for him! If only the universe had taken one look at him and said, “Oh! You’re handsome! Here is someone who will love you forever and who you can love in return!” That _never_ happened in real life. He’d learned the hard way that it didn’t.

“The pole dancers will be here soon,” the barman whispered and gave Victor a wink. “They always cheer _me_ up.”

Victor just nodded. Pole dancers. Well, they’d cheered him up last time, that’s for sure!

He waited for them to come. The barman hadn’t been entirely honest when he’d said “soon” and so Victor had several hours to go between water and more alcohol.

By the time the dancers came out he was well beyond the point when he should’ve stopped. He had to hold on to something to remain upright, but he could still see everything perfectly well.

The lights were dimmed, except for a few intimate lights interspersed here and there throughout the room. Red lights shone down on the little stage right behind the bar and four poles rose up out of the stage and stretched up all the way to the ceiling.

Three women wearing thongs, a pair of pasties and dark masks walked out in tall stiletto heels. They were followed by a man who was dressed the same way. Each of them picked a pole and began to spin around it.

The room filled with excited screams and whistles. The place was packed full of people now, some sitting in chairs and others – standing between them.

Victor ignored the women and pushed through the crowd to get a better look at the man. He had a very good figure, graceful and strong. He could raise himself on his hands and rotate around the pole with ease.

As Victor got within arm’s reach of the dancer, he saw the man lean against the pole and slide down with a playful smile on his lips.

Victor undid the buttons of his shirt, forgetting where he was.

The music was slowing down now, a dull repetitive beat in the background, a low voice singing something about sex in the foreground.

The dancer got down low and spread his legs.

Now there were no words, just loud breathing like a heartbeat pounding in his ears.

Victor stood still, his eyes fixed on the point between the dancer’s legs. His whole body was on fire. His head was spinning and he had to cling to the bar to remain upright.

One of the dancers gave a loud gasp. Then another, and another. The dancer before Victor gave a low moan. “More…” he begged, sliding down a little further.

Victor felt a shock of electricity pass through him. He tried to step closer, but his knees hit the bar.

Several seconds of silence followed and the music picked up again, faster and madder than ever before. He could make out only some of the words: “hot,” “sex,” “give it to me” and “more.”

The dancer spun around again and spread his legs into a mid-air split.

Victor leaned closer. He reached up and caught one of the dancer’s feet and pulled it down to press a kiss to it. He wanted to say something clever like, “Come to my bed, handsome,” but his mind chose that moment to decided that enough was enough and he passed out with the dancer’s foot still clutched between his hands.

He wasn’t conscious enough to see happened afterwards. He didn’t see all the trouble he caused, but, most importantly of all, he didn’t see that the man whose foot he was clutching so close to his face was none other than his skating partner, Yuuri Katsuki himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know, I know, I should stop, but here is another reference to a different fic I wrote (this time it’s [Pinning and Pining](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14947100/chapters/34634015), the explicit porn star AU).
> 
> Also… do you think I should add alcohol abuse to the tags?


	8. Yuuri’s Other Side

_Over the years, Yuuri had several part-time jobs to provide him with money when what the sponsors gave was not enough, but instead of the more common jobs like waiter, barista, or a store worker, he found himself picking jobs that fell into a very specific category._

_As soon as he turned 19 he started working at a bikini drive thru and in just a few weeks he made enough money for a ticket to Japan. It had amazed him at the time. He only worked for a few hours on the weekends, serving customers horrible coffee while wearing a pair of underwear, an apron and a semi-convincing grin, but people were always leaving big tips. Sometimes people came back more than once in the same day._

_“How can they stand this stuff?” Yuuri had asked the girl on the same shift as him._

_She’d merely laughed and said, “I’m pretty sure they’re not here for the coffee.”_

_Well, yes, of course. Obviously. But…_

_He’d glanced at her and decided that she must be the reason for all the attention they were getting. She was, after all, a very beautiful woman. And he never brought up the topic again._

_But a few weeks later she quit and another girl took her place. Yuuri, who expected to see a decline in the number of customers, was surprised to see it continue its steady increase._

Well, she’s pretty too, _he thought about the new girl and continued on as if nothing had changed._

_Eventually he had to move to Detroit, so he was forced to quit his job. He spent the first few weeks in Detroit thinking longingly of those huge tips the customers had always left. He always needed more money. The sponsorships never covered all of his expenses._

_One day he spotted a sign on a bar that called for pole dancers._

I can do that, _Yuuri thought. He’d taken pole dancing classes several years ago and he found, to his surprise, that a part of him now missed wearing revealing clothing._

_But when he came to ask about applying, he was suddenly overcome by a nasty feeling that he’d made a big mistake._

_“You want to pole dance here?” the barman asked in surprise. “What you do in private is your business, of course, but we were looking for hot girls for the clients to admire, not…” he trailed off, but Yuuri could guess how that sentence was supposed to end._

_He was suddenly very conscious of what the barman saw when he looked at Yuuri. He saw the glasses and the bag slung over one shoulder, which was more reminiscent of a university student rather than a pole dancer._

_But the thought of pole dancing in front of a cheering audience was so tempting!_

_“I took pole dancing classes,” he pressed on. “Please, if you just let me do a small audition…”_

_The barman gave a shrug and left to call the manager._

_Five minutes later they had poles set up behind the bars and watched him with their faces full of expectation._

_Right._

_Yuuri stripped his clothes off, leaving only his underwear and put his glasses on top of the pile. He didn’t stop to consider what he was doing, or even to consider the fact that he could’ve easily given a demonstration with his clothes on. He climbed up onto the bar, took a hold of the pole and went through the hardest moves he’d learned. For several blissful minutes he was back in the pole dancing class, his mind full of memories of a room full of dancers all trying to learn the same moves._

_When he finished, the sound of applause brought him back to reality and he stared at the barman and manager as both men beamed and clapped._

_“I stand corrected,” the barman said. “That was_ very _good!”_

_“Can you do something hot?” the manager asked, a gleam in his eye._

_Yuuri remembered then that this was pole dancing for an audience and not pole dancing as a sport and felt like an idiot. Instead of an answer, he stood against the pole and slid down slowly, spreading his legs apart. He went as low as he could, lingered there and then rose. He faced the pole, wrapped his legs around it as suggestively as he could and reclined his back with what he hoped was a satisfied smile._

_This time when he came down from the pole his little audience was red-faced. The barman was fanning himself with his hand._

_Yuuri’s eye fell on the windows behind them and he spotted a few curious face pressed up against the glass. He gave them a little wave._

_“You’re hired,” the manager said. “Can you start tonight?”_

It was hard to go up on a pole and seduce the audience after how devastating their skate had been, after Yuuri had seen how crushed Victor was by their marks. He’d tried to be reassuring, he really had, but Victor hadn’t looked like someone who could be reassured.

Still, there was somewhere for Yuuri to be that night, so he went home and got ready. He played slow, seductive music to get into the mood, but all he could picture was Victor’s apologetic eyes ready to fill with tears.

 _Focus!_ he told himself and stood in the middle of his room with his hands pressed over his face.

After several minutes of slow, steady breathing he managed to get himself under control. Everything would be sorted out tomorrow. There was nothing he could do now, anyway. He was mostly convinced of that now.

He repeated this last thought to himself as he walked to the bar, but still he worried. Maybe there _was_ something he could do. Maybe he ought to be trying to comfort Victor in some way (although he hardly knew where to start). Maybe it was his fault Victor had made so many mistakes in the skate. Maybe Yuuri had let him push himself too far. Maybe… Maybe… Maybe there was something he should’ve done that he’d completely failed to do and he didn’t even know what it was!

Through some sort of miracle he shook the thoughts off at last and went out on the stage with his head full of the routine he’d rehearsed with the other pole dancers.

There was only the here and now.

And then someone broke out from the audience and grabbed his foot.

At first Yuuri thought his mind was playing tricks on him. The man looked a bit like Victor, maybe, but it _couldn’t_ be him. How could it?

But _of course_ it was Victor. Hadn’t he told Yuuri himself that he liked to come here and watch the pole dancers? And what was so surprising that after a failure like theirs Victor would come here to try and forget his sorrows?

Victor passed out and Yuuri felt panic rise in his chest. How much alcohol had Victor had? They had training tomorrow morning!

A commotion began all around him. The barman shouted something. Someone in the crowd called for police, or an ambulance, or possibly the fire department.

If they came, people would find out _who_ Victor was and who Yuuri was and there would be enough bad press to last him a lifetime.

Yuuri crouched down and pulled Victor up into his arms, cursing his high-heeled shoes. He straightened up and saw someone faint in the crowd. Then he turned just in time to see the barman watching him with fear in his eyes.

“I’ll take care of it,” Yuuri promised and carried Victor away.

Was it his imagination, or did the room fill with shouts and whistles as he walked out?

Yuuri carried Victor into his change room, placed him carefully in a chair and studied him. Victor was still breathing, much to Yuuri’s relief. He didn’t know anything about first aid and so he had no clue where to even start.

In fact, Victor wasn’t so much unconscious as asleep. Would he wake up soon? And then what?

Yuuri pulled his mask off and put it down in front of the mirror, catching sight of his reflection as he raised his eyes again. Only then did he become conscious of the fact that he was almost completely naked. If Victor woke up now, how would Yuuri explain any of this?

 _I work as a pole dancer on Friday nights,_ Yuuri tried out mentally. No, he already knew what followed when people heard about that.

He turned his head and let his eyes take Victor’s sleeping form in. Even unconscious and with a lopsided grin on his face, Victor was heart-achingly handsome.

Yuuri shook his head. He knew he was starting to like Victor. He couldn’t help it.

 _I can’t let him find out about this,_ he decided and pulled his clothes on as quickly as he could, filled with panic at the thought of Victor opening his eyes and asking a lot of very awkward questions.

But when he finished getting dressed Victor was still asleep.

Yuuri dropped into chair next to him and regarded him thoughtfully. Now what was he supposed to do? Wait for Victor to wake up? What if he slept until tomorrow morning?

Yuuri definitely didn’t want to spend the night here, but the thought of carrying Victor all the way to his apartment didn’t appeal to him either.

And then there would be all those questions in the morning…

He leaned over Victor and gave him a gentle shake. “Victor,” he called and then louder, “Victor!”

“Hmmm…” Victor turned away and made a feeble attempt to break free of Yuuri’s hold.

“Victor, wake up!” Yuuri exclaimed, fear making his blood run cold.

“Five more minutes,” Victor mumbled.

“You need to go home,” Yuuri urged.

“Don’t… want to…” Victor protested. “Leave me. I just want to sleep. Here.”

Yuuri let out a frustrated breath. Leaving Victor here was not an option at all.

Victor slumped back into sleep, but Yuuri shook him again. “What…?” he mumbled.

“Where do you live? What apartment?” Yuuri asked, levelling his face with Victor’s as a note of desperation entered his voice.

Victor mumbled an address, followed by an apartment number and passed out.

Right.

Yuuri pulled him up to his feet, slung one arm around his shoulders and led Victor quietly out the back door. There was no dignified way to do this. He would just have to keep Victor from falling on the ground and continue walking.

He had a rough idea of where they were going, but he managed to get completely lost once and had to stop a passerby to ask for directions.

“Have a good time?” the man asked with a laugh and a nod at Victor’s slumped form.

“He’s the most boring drunk I ever met!” Yuuri exclaimed, doing his best to sound casual. They were just two friends coming home from the bar and nothing more. Then he remembered that he’d just asked for directions and added, “We were supposed to go back to his place for a movie, but he fell asleep on me, so I figured I’d just watch the movie and let him sleep it off.” Victor chose this moment to give a loud snore, startling both of them.

Yuuri laughed, but his voice sounded even more nervous now. “I can’t bring him back to my place: my roommate invited his girlfriend over. I’d never been to his place. I just know it’s here somewhere.” He went on lying, feeling like he was trying to conceal a dead body.

“Just turn after the next traffic light,” the man told him. “Big white building, you can’t miss it. Good luck!”

And they went their separate ways.

Yuuri suppressed a sigh of relief. “Victor?” he whispered.

But Victor went on sleeping.

“Why is your apartment so far away?” Yuuri mumbled under his breath.

When, at last, he saw that he’d found the right place he thought his troubles were over, not realizing that more were still to come.

First, he was faced with the challenge of getting through the front door. It was locked and, Yuuri suspected, under constant video surveillance.

 _He must have a key!_ Yuuri reasoned and congratulated himself on his quick thinking. And then it occurred to him that if he wanted to find said key, he would have to search through Victor’s pockets and that was something he really, really didn’t want to do.

“Victor…” he called gently and gave him a light shake.

“Mmm…” was all he got in response.

He tried again. “Victor!”

“What mrmmmm…” Victor mumbled, most of his words an incoherent jumble.

“I need your key,” Yuuri said.

Victor stuck a hand in his top pocket and produced a set of keys before dozing off once more.

Yuuri gave his head a light shake and unlocked the front door.

He was surprised to find that amid all this confusion he somehow managed to remember Victor’s apartment number, which also gave him the floor to aim for. He went up in the elevator with Victor draped over his shoulders, lost in the depths of sleep.

When, at last, Yuuri got to the right door and unlocked it, he felt ready to celebrate. It was almost over. He was nearly free!

He carried Victor through the rooms to the bedroom and lowered him gently on the bed. Yuuri stepped back and released a sigh.

Then his eyes fell on Victor’s shoes. It was probably a good idea to remove them, but it hit him then just how tired he was and how much he wanted to go home.

 _He’s home, that’s the important part,_ Yuuri told himself and walked to the door, feeling only a little bit guilty.

And then he froze.

The door! How was he supposed to lock the door behind himself and still leave Victor’s key for him?

He considered the set of keys in his palm. They weren’t very big. Maybe he could slide them under the door after he left?

He found that he didn’t want to look at the door. He was terrified that he would discover that there was no way he could slip the keys back in.

He rubbed his forehead. He was _so_ tired. He just wanted to sleep. He _needed_ to sleep…

Victor woke up because the sun was shining right into his eyes. He turned over, but it was too light in the room for him to go back to sleep.

And then he felt as if someone kicked him. It was _too_ bright in the room. What time was it?

He reached out for his phone and held it in front of his face, staring at the time it displayed for several long seconds before leaping off his bed in a panic.

It was only then that he noticed that he was still in his clothes from yesterday. And even in his shoes.

 _I must’ve been really out of it last night,_ he thought. _What was I doing, anyway?_

It came back to him in bits and pieces. First he remembered a boy dancing around a pole, wearing almost nothing. Well. Not _nothing_. He had a mask over his face. But, Victor had to admit, that he hadn’t really looked at the dancer’s face anyway.

Victor felt his legs shake under him and sat down on the edge of his bed.

Where had he come from? Where had the dancer been? On that topic, where had _Victor_ been that he’d seen… Oh, right! Where _else_ could he go to watch pole dancing?

He remembered drinking at the bar that had pole dancers. He remembered the conversation he’d had with the bartender. Well, it _was_ true: he didn’t have anyone to keep him company on a Friday evening.

It was only then that what he’d done really hit him: he’d been drinking at a bar and drinking a lot, which was why…

He ran to the bathroom, where he spent a very unpleasant half hour cursing himself and alcohol.

When at last he emerged, he felt ready to go out into the world. It was then that the last memory of the previous day hit him.

He’d made a big mess of their skate.

Victor dropped onto his bed and put his head in his hands. He’d screwed everything up big time and now it was well past noon and he was in his bedroom missing practice.

How could he face Yuuri now?

A wave of hot shame rose up to engulf him. Would Yuuri even agree to train with him after that?

 _He trained with you when you didn’t bother trying,_ his conscience reminded him.

He _had_ to go. He had to make up for all the mistakes he’d made. Even if this next skate was their last one, if the audience gave up on them at last, he had to give it his all.

With that thought in mind, he got up and gathered what he’d need for practice. In a few weeks he had nearly everything except one very important item: his keys.

He went through the pockets of his jacket and all the clothes he’d worn the day before. Nothing. Then he searched the floor of his room.

Where were his keys? He had to have had them when he came home: otherwise he wouldn’t have gotten into his apartment, right? He tried to remember where he could’ve put them, but he couldn’t even remember returning home, let alone anything he did after that.

 _How drunk_ was _I last night?_ he wondered.

He turned all his pockets inside out again and then crawled over the floor. He was panicking now. He’d lost his keys! He couldn’t leave the apartment without his keys! He had no spares! What was he supposed to do now?

He even searched under the bed and then on top of the bed, but still – nothing.

_They’re going to think I quit. They’re going to think… Think! Come on, think! Where could I have left them?_

He turned around, taking in his room. Had he searched every corner of it? Yes, yes, he had.

_Maybe I left them near the door._

He didn’t believe it even for a second, convinced that he must’ve been drunk enough to have done something mad like climb into his own apartment through the window while possibly dropping his keys onto the ground below.

Still, he went to check. He crossed the short corridor into the living room and stopped to take a good look around, terrified that he would find more evidence of something mad he’d done the night before and forgotten about. His eyes fell on the couch.

Yuuri woke up to find himself sprawled out on a couch. He looked around. The room wasn’t familiar and his confusion turned to panic when he remembered where he was. He’d fallen asleep in Victor’s apartment!

Thankfully, it was still empty and he could hear the faint sound of snoring coming from Victor’s bedroom.

It was still morning, which meant that there was still a chance that he wouldn’t be late for practice.

Yuuri grabbed his bag, looked around to make sure he hadn’t dropped anything and ran for the door. Only then did he remember his key dilemma.

But in the bright light that filled the room, he saw plainly that there was a small slot for mail at the bottom of the door. Shaking his head at himself, he crept out as quietly as he could, locked the door and slipped the key in through the flap. It landed with a tinkle and Yuuri rushed for the elevator.

He had to go. He couldn’t risk Victor finding him in his building and he ran the whole way home, feeling as if Victor was following closely at his heels and that any minute now he would call out Yuuri’s name.

He arrived at the rink much later than his usual time, but the rink was still empty, granting him a few moments to calm down and act as if nothing extraordinary had happened.

Everything was fine, he told himself.

But then Yakov arrived and still there was no sign of Victor, and Yuuri knew that things weren’t fine at all.

“Good morning!” Yakov greeted him. “Where is Victor?”

 _Probably nursing a very bad hangover,_ Yuuri thought, remembering how the man had fallen asleep. But Yakov wouldn’t want to hear that, especially if it meant that the answer could lead to more questions. “He texted me to say that he had an emergency to sort out this morning,” Yuuri lied and was a little shocked at how smoothly the words had come out of him.

Yakov was silent for several seconds. Then he just gave a nod. “What were you skating just now?” he asked.

Yuuri’s guilt doubled at the sound of that question. “Just… just a routine I’ve been putting together on the side. It’s not really a routine,” he corrected himself almost as soon as the answer came out of his mouth. “It’s just something I’ve been practicing to improve the quad flip.” He lowered his head, waiting for Yakov to tell him off and remind him that he had a competition to worry about.

“And mastering it too, from what I saw.” Yakov chuckled. “Show me what you have for a routine so far.”

“It’s… for a single skater,” Yuuri clarified, not wanting to give Yakov the wrong impression.

The old coach laughed. “I know.”

Yuuri felt himself relax a little. And then another thought occurred to him and he tensed. What he had been skating wasn’t so much a routine as a sketch of one. It wasn’t ready for anyone’s critique, especially not when that someone was a coach with as much experience as Yakov!

 _Calm down,_ he told himself. _You never said it was a complete routine. He isn’t expecting to see a complete free skate, or even a short program._

It didn’t even have a proper beginning, just a kind of middle bit with a step sequence, then a spin and a few circles around the rink before he jumped the quad flip.

He got to the end, landed perfectly and beamed proudly at Yakov, unable to keep his emotions down.

“Good, good,” he nodded, “but I don’t think the quad flip fits in that part of the routine. It’s up to you, of course, but I think it doesn’t flow very well with the parts before it. Have you picked any music for it?”

“Music?” Yuuri echoed, feeling foolish. He’d just had this stray bit of an idea, something that had come to him when they had been putting their mythology routine together. He hadn’t thought as far as music yet.

“I think you should pick flamenco music,” Yakov told him. “Something with a lot of guitar.” He looked thoughtful for several minutes and finally added, “I have a big collection. You can search through it for something you like, if you want.”

Yuuri opened his mouth. Was this really happening? Was Yakov Feltsman, _the_ Yakov Feltsman, who’d trained world champions, Olympic champions, who’d won in ice dancing, pair skating and in singles, really giving him advice for a future routine? “Thank you,” he mumbled, realizing a little late that he needed to say something. “I’ll… um… I’ll be glad to listen to what you have.”

“Now you just need a good, strong beginning,” Yakov told him. “But it might be a good idea to pick your music before you settle on that.”

Yuuri nodded. That sounded very sensible.

“I’ve been observing your career for a while,” Yakov went on. “You’re very good at skating poetic routines. I don’t think I’ve seen you skate something other than that.”

He wasn’t sure what to say to that. He’d never really thought about it. It hadn’t been a conscious choice, but now that Yakov pointed it out, Yuuri saw the truth of it. His thoughts jumped instantly to the night before. Would Yakov believe that the stripper back then and the Yuuri right in front of him now were the same person? Probably not.

“It might be a challenge,” Yakov went on, as if Yuuri had argued with him. “But you need to keep challenging yourself. I tell all my students that.”

Yuuri couldn’t help feeling flattered by this. The old man had as good as called Yuuri his student! “I… Thank you,” he said.

A smile appeared on Yakov’s face. “I think I know just the music that would work for you. If you don’t object to someone picking your music out for you.”

“Of course not!” Yuuri exclaimed.

Yakov pulled his phone out of his pocket. “Hm… Let’s see if I can remember the composer’s name to find it for you now…”

Yuuri watched him without a word. He forgot all about what he was supposed to be doing. He forgot that he had been waiting for Victor so they could work on their next routine. His mind took him to another season of figure skating and suddenly all his thoughts were focused on figuring out what his short program and free skate would be.

He even forgot – for just a moment, and, oh, what a moment it was! – that the man before him was not his coach, that this was Yakov Feltsman who Fate (and the organizers of _Skating with the Stars_ ) had allowed Yuuri to borrow for a time.

“Ah! Here it is!” And the sound of a guitar rewarded Yuuri for all his patient waiting.

For a moment, he couldn’t move.

Music was strange in that, for no reason that he could understand, different pieces affected him completely differently. There was music that sounded nice. He would listen to it and smile. There was music that made him think “I don’t like how this sounds” and change it, or wait for it to finish playing. There was music that didn’t leave much of an impression on him, but over time he would find himself liking it more and more, as if each time he listened to it, the piece was opening up in a different way for him. And then there was music that would catch him with the first few notes, music that made him feel as if he was falling in love with it, as if he’d found a great treasure. This piece was like that.

“What is it called?” he whispered and raised his eyes to look at the coach.

A warm smile spread over Yakov’s face. “In Regards to Love: Eros.”

“It’s perfect!”

“I’m glad you think so.” Yakov hit pause, but Yuuri reached out to play it again.

His hand froze over the button.

With a low chuckle Yakov restarted the music from the beginning. “I think this also solves your problem of coming up with an intro.”

Yuuri closed his eyes. Wasn’t this flamenco? He’d watched flamenco, or rather – flamenco-inspired dances before. He could probably think of something.

“Go out on the ice,” Yakov instructed him. “I have an idea.”

Victor ran to the skating rink, trying to think of an excuse he could give for coming late. He needed something convincing and serious, something far better than the truth, something that wouldn’t make it look like he’d given up. But nothing came to mind. Every excuse he could come up with sounded weak or like an obvious lie.

When he entered the change room, he still had no idea what he would tell Yakov and Yuuri.

He made it to his usual spot and took his skates out of his bag. He was so used to putting his skates on that he was sure that he could do it in his sleep, but even they seemed to be determine to give him a hard time today, as if to punish him for what he’d done the day before.

When he finally had his skates on, he rose unsteadily to his feet. It was time to face the consequence of what he’d done. He hadn’t thought up an excuse, so he’d have to make do with the truth and hope that Yakov and Yuuri would accept it without getting too mad at him.

As he got to the rink he thought, _Maybe Yuuri is already practicing. Maybe I’ll get to see more of his skating._

But, as luck would have it, at that moment Yuuri was standing before Yakov and listening to him explain something.

 _Yuuri doesn’t need to be lectured,_ Victor thought with a touch of bitterness. _Those words should be directed at me. I’m the one who screwed up. More than once, too._

Whatever Yakov’s lecture was about, Yuuri was listening with a serious look on his face, nodding from time to time to show that he understood.

And then Yakov finished speaking and a smile spread over Yuuri’s face. “I’ll try it –” he began and noticed Victor at last. “Hello, Victor!” he called out, giving a little wave.

Victor waved back. “Sorry I’m so late,” he said and opened his mouth to add something else, but shut it again as soon as he remembered that he didn’t have an acceptable excuse.

“Did you sort everything out?” Yakov asked, turning his stern look on Victor.

“I told Yakov about your family emergency like you asked,” Yuuri explained. A light blush appeared on his cheeks. He’d covered for Victor! Innocent Yuuri who blushed at the idea of lying had come up with a suitable lie when Victor’s imagination had failed him.

 _I’ll make it up to you,_ Victor promised him mentally. “I sorted it out,” he told Yakov. “Sorry for coming late to practice,” he apologized again.

“Let’s talk about your next program,” Yakov steered the conversation in a different direction. “The theme this time will be ballet. Have you thought about which one you want to skate?”

Ballet. Victor knew next to nothing about ballet. He’d only been to a ballet once in his life. He’d been a teenager then. His parents had taken him to see something. He couldn’t remember the name or any details about it. All he could remember was falling asleep about five minutes into it and only waking up for the intermission. His mother had scolded him, but he couldn’t do anything about it: as soon as the lights dimmed and the orchestra began to play he’d fallen asleep again. His parents had argued about it the whole way home.

“I haven’t,” Victor admitted.

Yuuri glanced at him. “If you don’t have any preference, I’d like to skate Giselle,” he said. “It was always one of my favourite ballets.”

Those words made Victor feel really foolish. Favourite ballet! He couldn’t even _name_ a single ballet! “No objections from me,” he reassured Yuuri, doing his best to look like this wasn’t the first time he’d heard the name Giselle.

“It _is_ another sad love story, though,” Yuuri pointed out.

Victor was suddenly aware that both Yuuri and Yakov were looking at him. “I don’t mind,” he said and felt foolish.

“Although…” Yuuri began thoughtfully. “My favourite part will be hard for us to skate: we’d need several dozen skaters to do it right.”

Victor tried to imagine what Yuuri’s favourite part must be like. He had a vague memory of a part of that ballet he’d slept through having a scene with lots of ballerinas on the stage moving in synch with each other. Was that what Yuuri had in mind?

Yakov looked thoughtful. “If you want a routine based on Giselle, I can make a suggestion.”

“Oh?”

Victor listened to Yakov explain and Yuuri agree, unable to shake the feeling that they were speaking another language. They made references to scenes and characters that meant nothing to him and he waited patiently for it all to make sense.

30 minutes later they had a rough outline of a routine. They went out on the ice to try it out.

“You haven’t said anything,” Yuuri noted. “Are you sure you’re ok with this? If you’d rather skate something else…” he trailed off.

“No, no!” Victor protested. “It’s alright. Honest.”

A smile lit up Yuuri’s face. “Thank you.”

And Victor knew that he had to get this routine right. There couldn’t be any mistakes this time no matter what happened.

A mere week later, Yuuri and Victor had to face the results of the votes again.

Victor mentally prepared himself for bad news. There was just no way that the audience would vote for him after how badly he’d screwed up last time, no way at all.

 _At least I’ll get to leave on a good note,_ he thought. _I’d rather give a good performance and have people feel sorry to see me go, than skate badly and make them glad I’m leaving._

But, despite how ready he thought he was, he found it almost impossible to face the screen while the votes were counted. He let his eyes sweep over everything else around him – the walls of the room, the other pair up for elimination. He even found himself staring at his costume as if determined to memorize all its details.

He heard Yuuri give a sharp intake of breath and raised his eyes.

Yuuri and Victor: 51%.

They just barely made it to the next round. He felt his blood run cold at how close they’d come to being eliminated from the show. And then it really hit him: they were still in the show!

“We made it to the final,” Yuuri whispered in awe.

The final. They actually made it. Despite how bad Victor’s skating was, despite how many times he’d messed up, they made it.

Victor’s eyes were drawn to Yuuri’s face. There was a big smile there.

_We did it._

Yuuri’s eyes met his. “We did it,” he whispered, echoing Victor’s thoughts.

A warmth spread over Victor’s chest. He felt as if he was flying, more than that – he felt as if he could do anything.

The feeling lasted beyond that mere moment. It was there with him as they returned to the change room. It was there while they watched the other skaters go out on the ice. It was even there as they prepared to go skate their routine. And, strangely enough, it remained with him during their skate as well.

He watched Yuuri move around him as if he was as light as a feather and followed in his steps. He forgot to think about what his body was doing, or to worry about where his feet were. He just let Yuuri and the music lead him.

The music came to a tragic end and Yuuri dropped into Victor’s arms as if all his life had left him.

The audience exploded with applause. Victor blinked at the stands in surprise. Somehow he’d completely forgotten that they were there!

Yuuri got up and threw his arms around Victor. “That was perfect!” he exclaimed.

Victor froze. He hadn’t been prepared for such a reaction from Yuuri. His heart beat fast in his chest. He’d done well, then? He hadn’t made any stupid mistakes?

He must’ve voiced his thoughts, because Yuuri pulled away and took Victor’s face with both hands. “You were amazing,” he said, looking into Victor’s eyes.

Victor gave Yuuri a weak smile. “Thank you.”

And suddenly it didn’t matter what marks the judges would give them. It didn’t matter what the show’s viewers thought of his skating, or even who would become champion of Skating with the Stars. None of that was important now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One of the nice things about coming back to this fic is discovering that I left notes to myself to remind myself what’s supposed to happen in future chapters. Thank you, past me!


	9. What is Important

Victor had worked hard for this routine. Yuuri couldn’t say if he worked harder this week than last week, but he’d certainly paid more attention to details this time. Still, as Yuuri himself knew all too well, all the hard work in the world didn’t necessarily mean a perfect skate. But this time it had.

 _I just hope the judges give us good marks,_ Yuuri thought as he took Victor’s hand and they bowed to the judges. _I know we still had no lifts and that the difficulty of our skate is a whole level below the difficulty of everyone else’s, but this was a huge improvement for Victor. They_ must _see that!_

They finished bowing and made for the kiss and cry.

Yuuri could feel Victor’s eyes on him and did his best to hide his worries behind a smile. Everything was fine, he told himself. After all, they made it to the final, didn’t they?

He found himself wondering about that again. Why had the viewers voted over and over again to keep them in the show?

 _Because Victor is very popular,_ a nasty voice in the back of his mind answered.

“I’m so nervous!” Victor exclaimed in a low voice, snapping Yuuri back into the present.

He was here now and he had to focus on this. This moment was important. He gripped Victor’s hand and caught the man’s eye. “I’m nervous too,” he admitted.

“And the scores for Yuuri and Victor are…” one of the hosts called out.

Victor’s grip on Yuuri’s hand was so painful that it took all of his self-control to keep from crying out.

The numbers appeared on the screen as one of the hosts read them out. First each judge assigned them a technical score, then one for performance. Finally their total points appeared on the screen. Yuuri stared in disbelief, but it was nothing compared to the surprise he felt when a little number 4 appeared next to their names. With only 5 pairs left in the show, this meant that they were no longer in last place.

Yuuri threw his arms around Victor. He wasn’t sure what he’d exclaimed, but Victor was hugging him in return and everything felt so right in that moment.

Yuuri closed his eyes, letting the moment sink in. He thought of the first time he’d won first place in a competition. The feeling now was akin to what he’d felt then.

They released each other and exchanged a smile.

“I can do better,” Victor insisted. “I’ll try harder next time.”

 _That’s what I said back then,_ Yuuri realized with some surprise. He remembered what his coach had said to him then and smiled, “I’ll look forward to it,” he promised.

“You both did very well,” Yakov added.

They turned around to stare at him and Yuuri realized with some embarrassment that he’d completely forgotten that the coach was there with them.

There was a long silence after those words as the three of them waited for one of the other two to say something.

“I was thinking…” Victor began hesitantly, “…about our next routine…”

“Yes?” Then Yuuri remembered that they were still in the kiss and cry and he rose to his feet. “Tell me on the way?” he offered.

Victor got up as well. “Sure.”

They walked away together. Victor waited until they were out in the corridor before launching into an explanation of his idea.

Yakov watched Yuuri and Victor leave, barely able to keep a smile off his face. Who could’ve known that Victor had that much talent buried in him? Perhaps, if circumstances had been different, he could’ve been a good figure skater?

He gave his head a little shake and walked away. What was the point in thinking about what could’ve been?

“And I was thinking that we could skate it all to –” Victor was saying, his eyes filled to the brim with excitement.

Yuuri listened, feeling himself get carried away with Victor’s enthusiasm. It was impossible to resist – Victor’s enthusiasm was too infectious and, after all, Yuuri was only human.

Someone cleared their throat, cutting Victor off mid-sentence.

Yuuri turned to see who was rude enough to interrupt Victor at a time like this.

Phichit Chulanont and Christophe Giacometti stood before them with the other pairs who were still in the show standing a little behind them.

“Sorry to interrupt,” Phichit said, giving them both a big grin. “We were just thinking of having a little dinner to celebrate making it to the final. Do you want to join us?”

Yuuri held his breath as he waited for Victor’s reply. What would he say to an offer like that? It was Friday, which meant that Yuuri had work, so he couldn’t attend. But what if – and here he felt his blood run cold at the mere thought – Victor agreed and then said something like “I know a really good place we can go” and told them about a bar with pole dancers. And what if they all agreed that it sounded like a great place to visit?

Was it better to call in sick now? He’d rather miss a day of work than face the questions they were bound to ask him. He’d need to hurry home to make the call, of course, but that wasn’t so hard.

“Celebratory dinner?” Victor echoed. “Where are you thinking of going?”

Yuuri’s heart fell. This was it.

By chance, his eye fell on Phichit’s face. The man was smiling as if he could read every thought that was going through Yuuri’s mind.

 _Does he know? Did he_ also _go to that bar?_ Yuuri stared down at his feet, afraid that his fear was showing itself on his face. This wasn’t happening. It just _wasn’t_ happening.

“Do you have any suggestions?” Phichit asked in an innocent tone of voice that Yuuri didn’t believe for a single moment.

“If you’re about to suggest a bar, you better think again,” another voice cut in and Yuuri recognized Yuri Plisetsky, Russia’s rising star in figure skating. Once again, he found himself wondering how the show runners had succeeded in persuading Yuri to come on the show. Was it a good idea for him to miss figure skating competitions?

Yuuri didn’t have long to dwell on these questions, however, since Victor spoke then. “I wasn’t going to suggest anything,” he said simply. “I was just thinking that we shouldn’t stay up late, that’s all.”

“Look at the model pupil!” Christophe exclaimed and threw an arm around Victor’s shoulders. “Of course we all want to be able to get up early tomorrow and go to practice! Just a quiet dinner, that’s all. We’ll bring out the champagne when we have a winner to toast!” He winked at Yuuri and Yuuri felt the blood rise to his face.

Once again, he was very conscious of how many good-looking contestants were participating in this show.

“How about it? Victor? Yuuri?” Christophe asked.

“I…” Yuuri’s voice broke and he cleared his throat. “I can’t go. Sorry.”

“Have somewhere else to be, hmm?” Did Christophe also know? Did they _all_ know?

Yuuri stared at his hands, not sure how to answer this question.

“Let’s go, Yuuri,” Victor insisted. “It sounds like so much fun!”

 _Fun for you, maybe. I’m not as outgoing as you. I’m not good at hanging out in big groups. I never know what to talk about and most of the time I just listen to what other people are saying with nothing to contribute. You don’t want me there, believe me._ But he couldn’t say any of that.

“I can’t,” he repeated.

“Just for a little bit,” Victor pleaded.

“We’re not going to force anyone to come,” Phichit said with a laugh.

 _As if I’ll believe that!_ Yuuri thought bitterly.

“What kind of food do you like, Victor?” Christophe asked.

“I’m sorry, I’m not going without Yuuri,” Victor declared.

Yuuri stared at him in surprise. Why was he saying something like that?

“We’re partners, aren’t we?” Victor asked and Yuuri found himself nodding without thinking.

Partners.

“Then it looks like we’ll have to convince Yuuri to come along with us,” Christophe said in the tone of someone who had full confidence in his abilities to convince anyone to do anything. “What’s your favourite restaurant, Yuuri? I’ll treat you.”

Yuuri coloured as he realized that, once again, he was at the centre of attention. “I… don’t know any fancy restaurants,” he confessed. “Usually I cook for myself, but there’s a small family restaurant here that…” he trailed off, suddenly aware of how that sentence was going to end.

“Yes?” Christophe prompted.

“…reminds me of home,” Yuuri finished and looked away.

“Perfect!” Christophe pulled his phone out of his pocket. “I’ll make a reservation for an hour from now. What’s it called?”

There was no escaping it now. He was going to the dinner. Yuuri cursed himself. He should’ve fought harder to resist. He should’ve said no and left it there. He should’ve just left.

He opened his mouth.

“Wait! Hold on!” Victor interrupted. “I need to ask Yuuri something.” He took Yuuri by the hand and led him out of everyone’s earshot and whispered, “Are you sure about this? You don’t have to go. Just tell them you have a headache. I can tell them that I have a bad headache and can’t go, if you want.”

“You’d do that for me?” Yuuri asked.

Victor smiled. “It’s easier for me to not go to a party than it is to go to a party you don’t want to go to.”

 _But I can see how much you want to go,_ Yuuri thought. _I saw the way your face lit up at their invitation and I saw how your face fell when I said no._ He hesitated. It was only one small dinner. Even if it took two hours, he’d still have time to go home, change and make it to work on time. Could he really go home, knowing that somewhere Victor was sitting alone when he could’ve been having fun?

“Let’s go,” Yuuri decided. He would probably regret this, but he’d just have to deal with that later.

“Are you sure?”

Yuuri put on his best smile as the rest of him hid behind it. “Of course.”

That was how an hour later Yuuri found himself sitting opposite Victor at a table with eight people he’d barely ever talked to before.

By the time they all sat down, Victor and Christophe were deep in a conversation about TV shows. Yuuri found himself wishing he’d watched at least one of the ones they mentioned so he could contribute something to the conversation.

The waiter brought them all menus and gave Yuuri a nod of recognition. The restaurant was so small that they’d been forced to push together all the tables they had just so everyone could sit together. Now they were probably using all the menus available.

Someone spoke, cutting into Yuuri’s thoughts, “So, Yuuri,” he recognized Phichit’s voice and braced himself for the words that would follow, “do you have your programs ready for when you return to competing?”

Yuuri thought of the skate he’d been putting together with Yakov. It had started out as just a scrap of an idea, but had gradually turned into a routine. He hadn’t really thought of it as a routine for him to skate in the next competition. It had been more a case of trying to put a routine together just to see what the final version will look like. But how could he explain something like that?

“Sort of,” he answered and that was the truth.

“Sort of?” Phichit repeated with a laugh. Then he gave Yuuri a big grin. “I have nothing _at all_. I hope I get a good idea soon.”

Yuuri watched him laugh and wondered how Phichit could speak about it so lightly. There wasn’t a lot of time left. First they had to think of something for Skating with the Stars, then come up with two programs for themselves.

“To be honest,” Phichit added in a lower voice, “Chris and I come up with all of our routines the day before the recording.”

Yuuri stared at him in disbelief. He’d seen how well Christophe and Phichit skated every program. They hardly ever made any mistakes! On top of that, their skates were always more difficult than what Victor and Yuuri skated that week. “How?” he asked before he could stop himself.

“Well… we practice skating and Chris learns new elements throughout the week and then on Thursday morning we put something together with those elements included and skate it over and over again until we can do it without mistakes. I got lucky with Chris: he’s very talented. And hilarious.”

Yuuri’s eyes drifted over to the other side of the table where Christophe and Victor were still deep in their conversation.

Dinner arrived. Around Yuuri, the skaters chatted about whatever was on their minds – the weather, current events, TV shows, movies, but none of them brought up the competition.

Christophe entertained everyone with a several hilarious stories that even got a laugh out of Yuuri. Another celebrity, whose name Yuuri couldn’t remember did funny impersonations of famous people.

It was fun. Yuuri didn’t say much, but he felt as if that was perfectly alright with everyone else. He let himself relax and just sit there, enjoying the moment.

Once they finished dessert, Yuuri glanced at his watch and rose to go. “Sorry, everyone,” he said, letting his eyes sweep over all their faces, “I have to be somewhere. Let me just call the waiter.”

“Don’t worry about that,” Christophe said, rising to his feet as well. “I promised I’d cover your bill.” He caught the waiter’s eye and gave a meaningful nod. “Let me walk you home, Yuuri.”

The offer was so unexpected that Yuuri didn’t know what to say. “I… um… thank you,” he mumbled.

“I’ll come with you,” Victor piped up, jumping to his feet. “And, really, Chris, you don’t have to treat Yuuri. I’m his skating partner. I should do it.”

Christophe shook his head. “I gave my word.”

Yuuri stared at both of them, unable to understand what was happening. Why were they arguing over this?

The waiter hurried over with their bills and Christophe asked for Yuuri’s as well. Victor opened his mouth to protest, but Christophe put a hand on his shoulder. “Please let me,” he insisted.

Phichit asked Victor a question that resulted in a long conversation. Christophe used the opportunity to pay for both himself and Yuuri. Then he fetched Yuuri’s coat and held it out to him.

Yuuri looked at Victor, but the man was still talking to Phichit. Why wasn’t he insisting he come along with them? And then Yuuri wondered why he’d even asked the question.

He let Christophe help him into his coat and they left together.

 _What does he want?_ Yuuri asked himself. _Is he trying to get me to invite him over? Is that what this is?_

“It’s a lot warmer out than I thought,” Christophe noted and Yuuri agreed.

It was a nice evening. The sky was clear and here and there he could see the brightest stars shining above them. He breathed in the fresh night air. They were on the outskirts of the city. The noise and bustle of downtown barely made it here.

“You’re going to perform in that club tonight, aren’t you?” Christophe asked, dropping the words on Yuuri like a bucket of cold water.

Yuuri froze. What was he supposed to say next? Pretend he had no idea what Christophe was talking about, or just admit it?

“I’ve seen you several times,” Christophe told him, stopping and turning around to give Yuuri a knowing smile. “You’re very good.”

Yuuri continued to say nothing.

“Does Victor know?”

“Does Victor know what?” a new voice cut in.

They turned around to see Victor standing behind them, looking like he’d run the whole way here from the restaurant.

Yuuri’s amazement at finding him here must’ve shown on his face, because Victor explained, “I wanted to walk you home, Yuuri. Is that alright?”

“I don’t mind,” Yuuri said with a smile. He couldn’t explain why, but he had the sudden feeling as if something that had been wrong up until that point had suddenly righted itself. “Thank you,” he added.

Victor smiled in return. “It’s no trouble.”

They resumed their walk.

“What were you two talking about?” Victor asked after a short pause.

Yuuri really didn’t want to talk about this right now. He didn’t want to have to explain anything about pole dancing, or how he’d gotten into it. Maybe this was a conversation for another time. Maybe he could avoid the topic forever. He didn’t have to talk about it at all, did he? Victor didn’t need to know.

His mind raced, desperate to find a way out of this situation. “We were talking about… my new routine!” he exclaimed and mentally congratulated himself on the clever way he’d devised to avoid talking about pole dancing.

“New routine?” Victor echoed. “What new routine?”

Yuuri didn’t dare look at Christophe. Instead, he focused all of his attention on Victor as he replied, “You must’ve seen me skate it. Yakov gave me a few ideas and found the music for me. It’s going to be my short program when I return to competing.” As soon as he said it, he realized that the thought had been bubbling under the surface for a while.

Victor’s face brightened. “Oh yes! But I’ve only seen you skate parts of it.”

Yuuri opened his mouth to add more, but then he noticed that they were standing outside his building. He stared at the front door, feeling faintly betrayed.

“Is this it? Do you live here, Yuuri?” Christophe asked.

He couldn’t keep standing here. He had to go. He had to be at the bar before he was up to go dancing. They were expecting him to come on time and he was bound to get in trouble if he came late. So why was it so hard to go?

“Have a good night, Yuuri,” Victor said, breaking the silence first. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Yeah…” He wanted to reach out and take Victor’s hand, but he was very conscious of Christophe’s eyes on him. “See you tomorrow.”

“See you later, Yuuri,” Christophe said and Yuuri was prepared to bet anything that Christophe would be at the club in an hour. “You too, Victor,” he added as an afterthought.

“Good night,” Yuuri forced himself to walk away, open the door to his building and enter.

Only when he reached his floor did the thought hit him: Christophe was about to go watch him perform, but Victor would go back to his own apartment. Why did Christophe get to watch him, when Victor didn’t?

He turned around and ran back down to the ground floor before he could change his mind, before his brain could tell him that this was a stupid idea.

But when he reached the door that lead outside, he saw through the glass that the street was empty. Both Christophe and Victor had gone.

 _Stupid!_ he cursed himself as he climbed the stairs to his apartment. _So stupid!_

His mind played the memory of Victor collapsing with Yuuri’s foot clutched in his hands over and over again and then he knew.

He _wanted_ Victor to watch him pole dance again.

Chris followed Victor, lost deep in thought. Here was an unexpected development! Last Friday when he’d watched Yuuri dance with Victor at his feet, he’d assumed that Victor knew, or, at least, recognized his partner. When Yuuri had carried him away, he’d envied Victor, imaging what a pleasant night was in store for him.

But now…

He studied Victor’s face and tried to think what he should do next. Should he reveal Yuuri’s secret to him? Or was that something for Yuuri to decide?

Ah, hell, this promised to be super entertaining, so how could he possibly pass up a chance like this? Besides, when Phichit found out that Chris let Victor go home at a moment like this, he’d give Chris hell for it and that was something Chris would rather avoid.

“Victor,” he said, placing a hand on the man’s shoulder, “why don’t you and I hang out tonight? I know of this great club – they have good drinks, the bartender is a good friend of mine and they have these _really hot_ pole dancers! What do you say?”

Victor gave a sad shake of his head. “I can’t. I know the place you’re talking about. Last time I went, I got so drunk I woke up after 12. I can’t miss practice again. What will Yuuri think of me?”

“Don’t worry about any of that,” Chris said dismissively “This is what I’m here for: I’ll make sure you don’t drink too much.”

But Victor only shook his head. “No, I can’t go. Thanks for the offer, but I really can’t.”

Chris couldn’t believe it. He was actually failing to convince Victor to come watch pole dancing! Was this really happening?

“It’s not that late,” he said, checking the time as he said it. “You’re not really about to go sleep?”

“I was thinking of watching some figure skating videos,” Victor admitted. “For inspiration.”

Chris raised his eyebrows. “Homework on a Friday evening? Come on, Victor! You skated so well today. You deserve a little break! Take it from me.”

For a moment, Victor looked almost convinced, but then he shook his head. “I can’t,” he went on insisting. “I really, really can’t.”

“Not even a little bit? Not even for one hour?” Chris pushed. Then an idea occurred to him, “What if you see something in the pole dancing that inspires you?”

But there was no persuading Victor now. He shook his head as he replied, “As tempting as it sounds, no. Have a good time, Chris!” He raised his hand, gave a little wave and left before the man could say anything else.

 _I tried,_ Chris thought and gave a shrug. If Victor was so determined to spend a boring evening all by himself, that was his choice. Chris deserved to have some fun.

He made for the bar, whistling bits of the music that he and Phichit had skated to earlier that day.

The following morning Yuuri woke up all alone in his bed. He rolled over, wondering why he’d expected someone to be there with him and then he remembered.

He’d spent the whole dance hoping to catch a glimpse of Victor in the crowd. He’d hoped that Victor would change his mind and come to the bar anyway. He’d hoped… He wasn’t sure what else he’d hoped for, all he knew for certain was that he’d gotten none of his wishes.

He had to get up. He had to go to practice and work on the idea Victor had proposed the day before. He had to see it through and make sure that they delivered a good skate in the Final.

The Final. The words were like a slap on the face. The Final, the last round. There wouldn’t be any rounds after this one. There wouldn’t be any more routines after this one. Once this round ended, they would go their separate ways. It didn’t matter who won or lost – the outcome would still be the same.

Yuuri buried his head under his pillow. It was so tempting to stay here and try to put the moment off for as long as possible, but he knew that it wouldn’t work.

He had to go and make the most of every moment while there was still time left.

Yuuko sat on the couch in her living room, surrounded by her family on all sides. Axel snuck onto her lap and Yuuko put her arms around all three of her girls. They all had warm blankets, pillows and cups of hot tea. They were ready for the final round of Skating with the Stars.

What a season this had been! The Internet was full of excited speculation of who would win. Gifs of each skating pair seemed to appear everywhere. Fans got into fights over who was the hottest contestant. It was hard to resist getting pulled in, even though Yuuko did her best.

Between Christophe Giacometti and Phichit Chulanont, and Yuri Plisetsky and Otabek Altin, it was hard to say which pair skated better, but there was no doubt that Yuuri Katsuki and Victor Nikiforov had showed the most improvement.

Sometimes when people talked about who should win, the discussions got very deep and at times they were just plain silly, but one thing didn’t go by unnoticed: this season was certainly getting a lot more attention than the last.

For the final round the rules were different. Unlike the previous rounds, there would be no judges to hand out marks or comment on each pair’s performance. This time the show was streamed live and viewers were supposed to use the app to vote, but only votes sent while the competition was streaming would count. Each viewer was only allowed to vote once per device.

Yuuko sat with her phone clutched tightly in her hand. Last season she’d known exactly who she would vote for, but this time she couldn’t decide. Should she vote for her favourite pair, or the one that she thought skated the best?

The first pair, Yuri Plisetsky and Otabek Altin, came out on the ice and she tried to relax. _Deep breaths,_ she told herself. _It’s just a show. It doesn’t matter who wins this. It’s just a show._

But her stomach kept twisting itself into knots. She didn’t want Yuuri to lose.

Yuri and Otabek finished their routine and the second pair prepared to go out on the ice. It was still not Yuuri and Victor.

“Mama,” Axel turned her head to face her mother, “do you think Yuuri and Victor will win?”

“I have no idea,” she confessed.

“Heh,” Loop smirked, “they’re not in the best pair, so I doubt it!”

“But Victor is the most popular contestant!” Axel protested.

“Is he really?” Yuuko asked. She didn’t ask how her daughters knew this: it was the kind of information she expected them to know.

“He is,” Axel confirmed.

 _Maybe they will win after all,_ Yuuko thought. “I guess Yuuri and Victor’s chances are good, then?”

“No, they’re not!” Loop protested.

The triplets got into a long argument and it took Yuuko some time to calm them down. In the end, only one thing worked.

“Look! It’s Yuuri and Victor’s turn!”

The girls all went silent and turned to watch.

There was no theme for this round and the contestants were free to skate whatever they liked. Yuuri and Victor had picked a song with a catchy beat and skated something light-hearted that was so unlike their last routine that it was almost as if the people out on the ice now were completely different from the ones who had skated in the last round.

Their movements on the ice were perfectly in synch. They even did a couple of little leaps in the air at the same time so they could swing their legs in a scissor-like movement. Then Victor turned to face Yuuri and climbed onto Yuuri’s shoulders to turn and wave at the audience with a big grin on his face.

Yuuko gasped. A lift! They finally mastered a lift!

“Mama!” all three girls exclaimed as one.

“I know!” she called out. “A lift!”

Yuuri let Victor down with great care and they wobbled a little as Victor returned to the ice, but they remained upright.

Yuuko breathed out.

The music ended and both skaters stood with their arms raised.

The audience cheered and clapped. Flowers rained down on the ice. It was a perfect moment and it was only spoiled by the fact that Yuuko knew that she had no idea who to vote for.

“Next on the ice…” one of the hosts’ voices boomed over the speakers, “Phichit Chulanont and… Christophe Giacometti!”

The audience roared. There was no doubt which pair was _their_ favourite.

That summer’s most popular song played as Chris strutted out onto the ice in short shorts and a crop top. Phichit stood to one side and pretended to be enthralled by the sight. The routine was an ice dance of the music video that went with the song and featured three daring lefts as well as a complicated step sequence. Add to that the costumes both men were wearing and the end result was a combination that was impossible to resist.

“Yuuri and Victor’s chances don’t look good,” Loop muttered.

Yuuko felt her head spin. Two hands landed on her shoulders, steadying her and she looked into the face of her husband. “Thank you,” she whispered with a smile.

He merely nodded.

Yuuko didn’t dare look at the screen after that. There was no way Yuuri could win Skating with the Stars, she thought glumly, not after Phichit and Chris’ routine.

All the pairs finished skating their routines and the two hosts of Skating with the Stars went out on the ice, beaming as if they were the true winners of the show.

“Have you all voted?” one of the hosts called out.

“Oh no! I forgot to vote!” her partner exclaimed. “Your attention everyone!” he called out as he held his phone up in a very dramatic gesture. “You only have 60 seconds left to vote! So put those votes in!” He pushed a button on his screen.

Around the rink the audience chanted, “60… 59…”

Out of sight of the cameras where all of the skaters had gathered to watch the progress of the voting, Yuuri turned to look at Victor. “Thank you,” he said.

“For what?” Victor asked in surprise.

“For all this –” Yuuri spread out his arms to take in their surroundings. “I had lots of fun.” _I really did and I’ll treasure all the great memories you gave me._

“Why are you talking like this is goodbye?” Victor asked.

“Because this is it.”

On the screen, the countdown slowed down dramatically, “20… 19…”

“It is?” Victor asked.

“This is the last show. Aren’t you going back to New York tomorrow?”

A look of panic crossed Victor’s face. “But I thought… I guess I… I didn’t realize this was it. I thought there was more… we had more… time.”

“One! The voting is done!” the host called out. “We’d like to call all of the pairs back out onto the ice!”

The contestants took this as their queue and left the room, each pair holding hands. Only Victor stood still, blinking at Yuuri in confusion.

“Let’s go?” Yuuri offered up his hand.

“Y-yes,” Victor stammered out and took it.

They stumbled out onto the ice together and took their place among the other pairs as the big screen showed all their names and an empty column next to each one, ready to fill up with the results of the vote.

“And… count!” the hosts called out together.

The columns jumped up and the numbers changed back and forth, but Yuuri wasn’t looking at the numbers. His attention was focused on Victor’s face and the faint frown that remained there. By the looks of it, the man was still puzzling over the words Yuuri had said.

 _I’m going to miss your face,_ Yuuri thought. _You gave me a hard time, but when it comes right down to it, I’m really going to miss you._

Finally Victor’s face spread in a little smile. “Thank you too,” he said.

“And the winner of this season of Skating with the Stars is…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is an interesting point in the story, because if you're reading this shortly after I posted the chapter, you might be wondering "is this it? How much more story is there?" Maybe you have a theory of what will happen next. If, however, you're reading this fic after I finished posting all of it, then you know exactly how many chapters are left. Maybe you're looking at the chapter count, comparing it to the chapter you're on and possibly coming up with a theory for what will happen next.


	10. Goodbye

This was it then – the moment of truth. These last few weeks Victor had spent most of his time worrying about letting Yuuri down, or about making mistakes in his skating. The possibility of being eliminated from the show hung over his head every week and all he’d hoped for was making it to the next stage. Now here they were – in the Final with the very real possibility of winning. The thought was so strange that he had to rearrange all other thoughts in his head to make room for it. They could _win_?

But, no, he told himself, they didn’t skate as well as the others and, until today, they’d been stuck in last place. Besides, he’d seen how well Phichit and Chris had skated today and how warmly the audience had received them. So why was he allowing himself to hope?

The host started the countdown to the end of the voting. “60… 59…”

Victor felt Yuuri’s eyes on his face and he turned to look at him.

“Thank you,” Yuuri said. The words had been so unexpected that it took Victor a few seconds to understand what they meant.

“For what?”

“For all this –” Yuuri gestured at their surroundings as if Victor had made them all with his own two hands. “I had lots of fun,” he added.

There was something final in his tone of voice and it stung. “Why are you talking like this is goodbye?” Victor asked, confused about what was happening.

“Because this is it,” Yuuri told him.

The mad countdown continued and now Victor couldn’t help feeling as if once they reached zero he and Yuuri would be separated forever. “20… 19…”

“It is?” _It can’t be!_ he protested mentally. “How can this be it? Isn’t there another round, or something? A final special show?”

He thought back to the season of Skating with the Stars that he’d watched, but, try as he might, he couldn’t remember anything after the Final, no special extra, nothing at all.

“This is the last show,” Yuuri declared. “Aren’t you going to New York tomorrow?”

New York. For the first time in his life, the name of the big city filled him with dread. Was this really it? Were they really about to pack him away and send him home? So soon? Just when he was finally getting the hang of this show?

“But I thought…” he stammered out in panic. “I guess I… I didn’t realize this was it. I thought there was more…” He struggled to get the words out. His thoughts were a mess. “…we had more… time.” The last word fell from his lips like a heavy weight.

Yuuri stared at him in surprise. For a moment, it looked like he was about to say something, but then the hosts broke in, “One! The voting is done!”

What the host said after that sounded distant, as if his words were coming from somewhere very far away.

There was movement all around them, but Victor was still rooted to the spot, as if someone had glued his feet to the floor.

Yuuri held out his hand. “Let’s go?”

Feeling foolish, he stammered out, “Y-yes,” and nearly cringed at himself. What sort of response was that?

They followed the other pairs out onto the ice, joining them just as they finished taking their places around the host. Once again, Victor felt that he wasn’t good enough to be here with them.

 _This is it,_ he thought. _This is the last time Yuuri and I get to go out on the ice together. They’ll tell us who won and that’s it – we go our separate ways._

It was hard to imagine a different life than this. Had he really spent his life _not_ skating and _not_ putting together routines for competitions? The thought that tomorrow he wouldn’t be waking up early to jog to practice was so strange that he couldn’t wrap his head around it. All this: from that early morning jog to standing out on the ice while holding Yuuri’s hand was like something from another world. And Yuuri had helped him discover this other world.

“Thank you to you too,” he finally said. And at least those words felt right.

“And the winner of this season of Skating with the Stars is…” the hosts called out together.

Victor tensed. His heart beat fast in his chest. He stared up at the screen and felt his mouth open. Yuuri’s grip on his hand tightened.

One second seemed to stretch out for all eternity and then the hosts exchanged a grin and finished with, “…Phichit Chulanont and Christophe Giacometti!”

All the other pairs surrounded the winners, congratulating them all at once, talking over each other and not seeming to care whether or not they were heard. Some, like Yuri Plisetsky, murmured something with a glint in their eyes that told the world that the fight wasn’t over yet. Others were almost screaming.

But Victor and Yuuri were both still staring at the screen with the results for the vote.

_Phichit Chulanont and Christophe Giacometti: 35%_

_Yuuri Katsuki and Victor Nikiforov: 34%_

Second place! After all that they ended up 1% away from first place!

Victor and Yuuri stared at each other in surprise. Then Yuuri’s face broke into a big smile.

“We nearly won,” he whispered and then leaned closer to add, “If there had been a couple more rounds, we might’ve won!”

Victor didn’t know what to say to that so he merely nodded.

“Let’s go congratulate the winners.”

As they joined the other pairs a different meaning behind Yuuri’s words occurred to Victor: if he’d tried his hardest from their first day out on the ice, they would’ve won!

He knew then that he could’ve done it. They would’ve skated better than Chris and Phichit. Yuuri and he would’ve come up with several truly challenging programs and they would’ve done a good job of them too. If only he’d tried from the very start!

The thought poisoned everything after that. It made it difficult to watch Phichit and Chris go out on the ice to repeat their routine and it made it almost impossible to attend the celebratory dinner afterwards.

 _That could’ve been us,_ he thought as Chris and Phichit basked in all the attention they were getting. Both men took turns to tell funny stories that got a loud laugh every time. They went on about how much fun they had and made everyone promise to stay in touch.

Phichit talked about having even flashier costumes in his next competition. He promised to delight and surprise the world. Chris, meanwhile, talked about tours of the world. Victor wasn’t sure what exactly the tours would be for, but it sounded like a lot of half-naked men and lots of expensive wine would be involved. It sounded temping and Chris almost succeeded in persuading Victor to come with him.

And then he noticed that the space beside him was empty and that Yuuri was nowhere to be found.

He excused himself and left the table. Where had the man gone?

He spotted a waiter and walked over to him to ask about Yuuri.

“He stepped out,” the man told him helpfully. Then he gave Victor an up and down look, “I’m on my break in 10 minutes,” he added in a low voice.

Victor wondered why the man was telling him this and then dismissed the question as unimportant. “Enjoy your break,” he said absently and went looking for Yuuri.

The search didn’t take long. A small door by the bathrooms led out into an inner courtyard with several garbage bins and a stack of cardboard boxes. It looked like the sort of place people slipped out to for a quiet smoke. Yuuri stood with his hands in his pockets and contemplated the ground as if he’d dropped something.

For a moment Victor wondered if it was right to break Yuuri’s solitude, but a loud burst of laughter from the restaurant cut into the silence, making Yuuri turn around.

His lips opened slightly in surprise and then spread in a smile. “Were you looking for me?”

“Yes,” Victor admitted, noticing how warm Yuuri’s eyes got at that sound. Were Yuuri’s eyes always so beautiful? Did his mouth always look so soft?

“Sorry for sneaking off,” Yuuri said and turned away. “I wanted to be alone for a bit.”

Victor stepped around him to get another look at that mouth and those eyes. Those eyes…

Yuuri stared at him.

A long silence stretched out between them, getting heavier with every minute. Victor needed to say something to break it, but what could he possibly say?

He looked around, searching for inspiration, but all he saw were garbage bins and the backs of other restaurants. What could anyone talk about in a place like this?

Yuuri turned away. “Let’s go back. They’re probably wondering where we ran off to.”

Victor couldn’t help feeling as if an important moment had gone. But he merely agreed and followed Yuuri back inside.

As he resumed his place at the table Chris gave him a wink and whispered, “Don’t worry, I made sure they didn’t notice you were gone.”

“Thank you,” Victor muttered absently, his head full of the memory of Yuuri’s mouth and eyes. He threw a quick glance in Yuuri’s direction, but the boy had his back to him as he talked to someone else.

Why had Yuuri left the table? Why did he just stand there all by himself?

“Anyone want anything else?” Chris asked, his voice cutting into Victor’s thoughts.

He looked around himself, suddenly realizing that dinner was over.

Around the table, everyone shook their heads.

“I’ll call the waiter over, then,” Chris offered. He barely had time to look up before the waiter ran over to them.

Victor watched everyone else pay for their meals and pulled out his phone when his turn came. Just like he had when the results of the voting were announced, he felt as if he was somewhere far away from everyone else.

The payment completely, he followed Yuuri out without thinking and when Yuuri caught his eye, he asked, “Can I walk you home?

This earned him a smile and a nod, “Yes.”

They wished everyone else a good night and walked away side by side.

“I’m going to miss all this,” Victor finally said. “It was hard, but I had fun. Even when Yakov started one of his lectures.”

Yuuri burst out laughing. He had a nice laugh and Victor listened to it with a smile on his own face. Victor found his attention drawn to Yuuri’s eyes and mouth again. He wanted to say something else that would make Yuuri laugh, something very witty and clever, something that would make Yuuri smile at him and…and maybe say that he would miss Victor.

But Victor didn’t think of anything clever to say and Yuuri didn’t say that he would miss Victor. It just wasn’t fair.

They reached Yuuri’s building and lingered outside. Victor waited for Yuuri to invite him in, but Yuuri seemed to be waiting for Victor to do something.

“It’s… uh getting late,” Yuuri finally said, breaking the uncomfortable silence.

Victor glanced at the time on his phone. It was. This was it then: he would go home all alone, spend his last night here and then fly back to New York.

“Do you want me to walk you home?” Yuuri offered.

Victor shook his head. “No, no. You must be – you need to get up early tomorrow and continue training.” _Training without me_.

 _That’s how he should be doing it,_ a treacherous voice at the back of Victor’s mind supplied. _He’s a figure skater. He should be training for all those competitions he has coming up for him. I’m only going to get in the way._

“Good night,” Victor said, trying his best to smile.

“Good night,” Yuuri replied.

“And… um… good luck in your competitions!” Later he thought back to those words, the last words he said to Yuuri before they went their separate ways. What sort of words were they to say to someone you may never see again?

Unfortunately that thought came too late.

Having exchanged their goodbyes, Victor walked away into the night, trying to make plans for the next day and failing. The streets were empty, leaving him all alone with his thoughts.

He tried to focus on packing, on getting a taxi for the next day, and all the other little things he’d have to do before he left, but his mind kept conjuring images of Yuuri to distract him with: Yuuri smiling, Yuuri skating, Yuuri staring in amazement at their scores.

He wanted to turn around and go back.

 _No, don’t be stupid. You have to go home,_ he told himself.

So he went back to his rooms, and he packed, and he did all those little things that needed to be done so he could leave for New York the next day.

He thought he wouldn’t be able to sleep, but when he lay down in his bed, sleep welcomed him with open arms and he felt himself drift off.

_He was standing behind the restaurant again and there was Yuuri beside him. The man was saying something, but for some reason Victor couldn’t understand a single word._

_“What is it?” he asked. “What do you want?”_

_Yuuri tried again, but again Victor couldn’t understand. Seeing the expression on Yuuri’s face, Victor became convinced that it was something important. He had to know what Yuuri was saying to him._

_“Please say it again,” he begged._

_Yuuri repeated his incomprehensible babble._

_It wasn’t just very important, Victor suddenly knew. It was something he needed to tell Yuuri as well._

_Suddenly he became certain that he knew what it was. All he needed to do was speak and the words would be out. He took Yuuri by the hands._

_“Wait! Wait!” he exclaimed._

_Yuuri blinked at him._

_Victor drew a breath and opened his mouth._

“Good morning, Victor!” a voice chirruped into Victor’s ear “The time is now 6:00 am. The current temperature is 20 F. It is clear and sunny. Have a good day!”

Victor awoke with a start. He sat up and reached out for his phone without even thinking. He stared blankly at its screen, as if trying to remember what it was.

What had Yuuri been trying to tell him and why did it feel so important?

_It was just a dream._

_Yes, but what was he trying to say?_

The details of the dream were fading, but the sense of urgency was still there.

What was Yuuri trying to say?

He wanted to see Yuuri again, to talk to him and listen to the sound of his voice, but he had a flight to catch and a life to come back to.

An hour later Victor was at the airport, going through a long line at security. He kept turning his head and looking back at the crowd, as if waiting for someone to appear there. A few times he was convinced that someone was calling his name.

Just as he reached his turn to go through security, he stopped and looked around. His eyes searched the crowd, but didn’t find what he was looking for.

Only as he reached his gate did he realize that he’d been looking for Yuuri in that crowd.

Why would Yuuri be there? Why _wouldn’t_ he? Why hadn’t he come to see Victor off? Why hadn’t Victor asked Yuuri to come see him off?

He imagined a heartfelt goodbye filled with promises to see each other again. That’s how it should’ve happened! That was how people said goodbye to each other! Not that Victor knew this from experience, but plenty of movies had insisted on this.

He lowered his head onto his hands. He couldn’t even call Yuuri!

What did Yuuri think of their goodbye? Did he think that Victor just didn’t care?

 _He probably thinks that I can’t wait to get back home,_ Victor decided ruefully. _I make a friend and I can’t even say goodbye properly!_

The thoughts troubled him the whole way back home, not giving him a moment of peace. Even when he picked up Makkachin, he found himself thinking about Yuuri, remembering how the man loved dogs and all the times they’d talked about them.

“Good morning, Victor!” his phone chirped as several bars of a catchy tune played in the background. It was the morning of the day after he left Detroit behind. “The time is now 6:00 am. The current temperature is 15 F. It is cloudy with a strong wind. Have a good day!”

Victor sat up and rubbed his eyes. He was still half-asleep, so he let his phone tell him what to wear, what to have for breakfast, where to take Makkachin on his morning walk and then what route to take while driving to work.

He watched his calendar fill up with appointments. He returned to work and listened to everyone tell him what they thought of his skating. He discovered with some surprise that everyone at work had watched the show and – what was even more surprising – had voted for him and Yuuri. They told him that he should’ve won and he nodded automatically, not having the will to argue.

What was the point in arguing? Even if he and Yuuri had won the show, it wouldn’t have changed the fact that it was all over now.

“We all rooted for you,” one of the models told him and he tried to remember what her name was. She gushed excitedly about his last skate and he felt bad that he couldn’t remember something as simple as her name.

His last skate. He remembered that beautiful moment when Yuuri held him. He also remembered how much effort it had taken them to master just that one simple lift, but it had been worth it in the end. That one moment of flying was worth all the treasures in the world.

They talked about Skating with the Stars for the first two days and then everyone seemed to forget. On the third day there were a few comments from people. On the fourth day only one person said something to him about it. On the fifth day it seemed to be over as if then it was truly done, almost as if it had never happened.

That day Victor sat in the evening and flipped through his photos, trying to convince himself that it hadn’t been a dream, that it had really happened.

He studied each photo closely, as if committing them all to memory. He’d forgotten to delete all those photos of him that Yuuri had taken that hadn’t turned out well and now they were precious to him, not that he didn’t feel embarrassed when he looked at them. How could he have been so selfish and obnoxious and how had Yuuri put up with him?

He opened up all the stories he’d posted on Instagram during his time in Skating with the Stars and swiped through them, feeling jealous of his past self.

In fact, every evening after work he came home and spent several hours staring at his photos. He found himself trying to imagine what Yuuri would do or say at different parts of his day.

And the whole time he couldn’t shake the feeling that he was waiting for something. He kept asking himself what was he waiting for, but no answer ever came to him.

Three weeks after he said goodbye to Yuuri, Victor made an unexpected discovery.

He was starting to get fed up with following his phone’s instructions. That moment when he’d woken up to the sound of the usual “Good morning, Victor!” he’d been on the verge of dropping his phone out the window.

He’d rebelled and ignored his phone’s suggestions and walked Makkachin in a random direction. He’d walked into a couple of dead-end streets and gotten lost a few times, but in a strange way he’d enjoyed it all.

Now he was considering ignoring the lunch suggestion his phone was giving him and finding somewhere else to eat.

If only Yuuri were here! He didn’t listen to what his phone told him. In fact, Victor realized, he’d never once pulled his phone out in Victor’s presence. Yuuri seemed completely at ease with making decisions on his own.

Maybe it was better to do things Yuuri’s way and not listen to a little phone. What did the phone know about fun, or how much Victor missed his time on Skating with the Stars?

His eyes caught a face in the hallway and he froze in shock. No, it couldn’t be! He was just imagining things. It _wasn’t_ him!

But the person was walking towards Victor now and with every step Victor’s eyes continued to insist on something that Victor thought was impossible.

It couldn’t be, but it was!

The person came up to him and there was no denying it anymore: Chris was standing in front of Victor with a satisfied look on his face.

“Hello, Victor,” he said in the measured tones of someone meeting a friend they’d arranged to meet.

“Chris!” Victor exclaimed. “What are you doing here?”

Chris raised an eyebrow. “I work here.”

“What? You _work_ here?” Was this some kind of prank? There was no way Chris worked here without Victor ever noticing! Before Victor could stop and think, he said as much aloud.

A smile twisted Chris’ lips, but there was more mischief than mirth in it. “It’s true. I _do_ work here. And I’ve seen you many times between photoshoots.”

“But then why haven’t I ever seen you?” Victor asked.

Chris gave an awkward cough and looked around. Then he stepped forward and lowered his voice as if imparting a great secret. “Can it be that you weren’t paying attention?”

Victor opened his mouth to protest indignantly at this, but Chris cut in before he could say anything. “Were you alone in the session you did just now, or was there another model with you?”

“Um…” Victor thought back to the session and who else had been there. “I was with two other models,” he replied.

“Describe them to me,” Chris said. “What did they look like?”

This question was a little harder. One of them was blonde, or maybe he was thinking of a model from a previous session? The other one had dark hair, definitely! But, apart from their hair colour, he couldn’t remember anything else. What had they been wearing? Dresses. Probably. What makeup were they wearing? There must’ve been lipstick, but…

“And do you remember their names?” Chris asked, as if going through a mental list of questions.

“No,” Victor admitted. He was very bad with names. Always had been.

“There you go,” Chris said with a shrug of his shoulders. There was a sad expression on his face now. “You don’t pay attention to anyone, do you?”

Chris was right. There was no denying it. Victor spent more time looking at his phone that he did looking at people. Except when he’d been with Yuuri. He’d paid attention to Yuuri.

 _Only because Yakov took your phone away,_ his conscience supplied.

“You’re right,” Victor admitted.

“Lucky for you I don’t take these kinds of things personally,” Chris concluded.

A memory nudged Victor’s brain. “Hold on. You were talking about a world tour during that celebratory dinner we had. I remember!”

“Oh yes and you wanted to come along!” Chris laughed. “For all those hot men we’d meet en route.”

For some reason, those words conjured an image of Yuuri in Victor’s mind. But then: why not Yuuri? He was hot, after all. Victor’s mind flipped through all his memories of Yuuri like photographs. He remembered what Yuuri had looked like in each of his figure skating costumes, how he’d looked during practice, during their jogs together, after a long day of practice when they were getting ready to go home.

“I can see that the idea of hot men has you hooked,” Chris elbowed Victor lightly and then winked.

“I was…” _Just thinking of Yuuri._ “…just…” He couldn’t admit it. For some reason, he didn’t want Chris to know what had been going through his mind.

“Just…?” Something about Chris’ smile suggested that the man could read Victor’s mind as easily as a book.

“Just thinking of the hot men,” Victor finally managed. Well, _one_ man in many different situations, which was close enough.

“Of course,” Chris said. “Anyway, to answer your question – I did part of my tour and frankly ran out of money.” He shrugged. “ _C’est la vie._ ”

“Oh.” It was sad, but then he probably would’ve done the same thing, if he’d been in Chris’ situation. On the other hand, his world tour would’ve been planned in advance and he wouldn’t have been in this situation.

“On the topic of hot men,” Chris said and the mischievous twinkle returned to his eyes, “how is Yuuri doing?”

The question caught him completely by surprise and the truth escaped before he could stop and think. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?” Now it was Chris’ turn to be really surprised. “Don’t you call him, or text, or facetime, or something? What sort of boyfriend are you?”

“Boyfriend?” Victor echoed. For some reason, the sound of the word was almost painful for him. “Boyfriend?” he repeated and again there was that pang of pain in his chest. “I’m not Yuuri’s boyfriend!”

Two thoughts occurred to him then. The first was: _I wish I was_. The second one, which came to him almost at the same time as the first was: _He doesn’t like me._

“Oh come on, there’s no need to hide! The two of you are so obviously in love with each other! I haven’t forgotten how you snuck out during our dinner for a chance to make out. And I saw you leave together afterwards. Having seen the way Yuuri handles a pole, I’m very jealous of you, I’ll have you know!”

“What make out session?” Victor asked. “We were just talking!”

Chris gave him a look of disbelief. “As if I’m going to believe that! Talking about what?”

Victor thought back to that night. Try as he might, he couldn’t remember the exact words they’d said to each other. All he could recall (and with perfect clarity too) was how soft Yuuri’s mouth had looked and how warm his eyes had been.

All he’d done was stare at Yuuri and Chris thought they’d been making out! If only he’d been that lucky!

Did all the others who’d been on the show with them think that he and Yuuri were going out? He gave Chris a long look and wondered if it was a good idea to ask him.

“I’m pretty sure everyone knows you two were making out,” Chris said as if he could read Victor’s thoughts “You weren’t exactly subtle about it.”

Was there any point in arguing? Chris didn’t look like he could be persuaded to change his mind. And what would he accomplish if he _did_ convince Chris that he was wrong? All it would do is make him look even more foolish than he already was.

“So…” Chris said, “how is Yuuri? Really? Please don’t tell me you had sex with him and then ran off without another word! Don’t tell me you didn’t even call him after to ask how he was doing! Yuuri isn’t some boy from that HotDate App! He’s more serious than that!”

Victor’s mouth dropped open at those words. How did Chris know what Yuuri was like? Did Yuuri tell him? But, then, why hadn’t he told Victor? Was it something that people just knew?

“Oh dear god, you _did_ just leave,” Chris put his hand over his face. “Victor, you… _How_ can you be so dense?”

“I didn’t – we didn’t – he didn’t give me his number!” Victor spluttered out. “I _can’t_ call him!” the words came out almost as a wail. “I _asked_ for his number and he didn’t tell me!” The full pain of that refusal hit him now, bringing tears to his eyes.

“Ah.” Chris thought about this. “That _is_ … interesting,” he admitted. Then he gave Victor a suspicious look. “You didn’t do something bad in bed, did you?”

“Chris! We _didn’t_ have sex!” Victor protested, unable to take it anymore. “You have to believe me. I walked him home after the restaurant and then I…” he lowered his head, “…said goodbye in the stupidest way ever.”

“Ah!” Light seemed to dawn for Chris, but Victor remained in the dark. “You really messed that one up.”

Victor gave a heavy sigh. “Don’t I know it.”

“So what are you going to do now?” Chris asked.

“Do…” Victor panicked. “What _can_ I do now?”

Chris gave him a look that said better than any words could that this was the wrong answer completely. “The way I see it,” he said after a short pause, “you can do three things.” Three options sounded good and Victor brightened at the prospect. “You can find yourself someone else,” Chris began and added as an aside, “Although, I doubt that many people can compete with Yuuri.” Victor nodded enthusiastically at this. “You can stay at home and mope around all day. Or…” Victor held his breath, “…or you can go to him and get it all right this time.”

This last option sounded so logical that Victor couldn’t believe that it hadn’t occurred to him before. Then again, it had one important drawback. “But how do I find him?”

“Really, Victor…” Chris said with another disappointed look. “I’m not going to answer that question. I’ll leave it up to you to figure that out. Call it your homework for tonight.” He winked.

Victor frowned. He couldn’t understand why Chris wouldn’t tell him, but maybe the answer was a lot simpler than he’d thought.

How could he find Yuuri? He could go to Detroit and just go to his house – easy. Yuuri actually _lived_ in Detroit. So why was Victor even asking such a stupid question?

And then he knew why: because he was scared to go back there. He was terrified that when he came Yuuri would tell him that he didn’t want to see him anymore, that when he’d come he’d discover that Yuuri had only put up with him for the sake of the show. And, worse, that when he came he’d find that Yuuri already had a boyfriend.

“I’ll think about it,” he murmured and turned to go.

“Where are you rushing off to?” Chris asked, falling into step next to Victor. “Let’s have lunch together. My treat.”

Victor opened his mouth to turn Chris down. He wanted to be alone with his thoughts. He wanted to sit somewhere quiet where he wouldn’t be disturbed, where he could pity himself in peace.

But Chris didn’t look like he was about to let someone to shake him off so easily. He matched Victor’s step with ease and talked about lunch as if it was settled that they were definitely going.

Victor didn’t have the heart to argue. Let Chris come eat with him. What could possibly go wrong? That was a dangerous question and it was just Victor’s luck that nothing _did_ go wrong over their lunch break and the only thing that happened was that Chris made Victor promise to have lunch with him every day whenever possible.

Two weeks later Chris and Victor were on very close terms. Close enough to discuss almost any topic with complete honesty. Close enough to start rumours among all the other models. Close enough to go out for drinks together after work. Close enough that when the dreaded day of Victor’s birthday came, Victor invited Chris to go out for drinks with him.

They sat together at the bar, both well on their way into the land of the drunk and tried to talk. Or rather, Victor tried to pour his heart out.

“All I wanted… I just wanted someone, you know?” he mumbled. “Someone…” he waved his arm around as if trying to conjure the person he wanted.

“Someone hot and with a heart of gold,” Chris supplied with a knowing smile.

Victor considered those words. “Exactly,” he said after a moment’s pause. “Is that too much to ask?”

They had another round of drinks and Victor felt the world give a lurch. His mind kept returning to Yuuri. It hadn’t done that for the last three days, but tonight it did it again for some reason. He found himself wishing Yuuri would call and wish him a happy birthday. He wished he could’ve called Yuuri himself and just listened to the sound of his voice.

“If only Yuuri had Instagram!” Victor lamented. He’d meant to keep the thought to himself, but it slipped out on its own. “If only I could just… just _look_ at photos of him and see how he was doing!” Victor folded his arms over the bar and dropped his head onto them.

Chris gave him a sympathetic pat on the shoulder.

There was a long pause after those words.

Finally Chris spoke up, “If you’re curious about how Yuuri is doing… Phichit tells me that Japan Nationals are in a week.”

Victor raised his head and stared at Chris, waiting for those words to make sense.

“Japan Nationals as in… the national figure skating championships… of Japan.” Seeing the lack of reaction from Victor, Chris clarified further, “Yuuri represents Japan in figure skating championships, so he competes in the Japanese national championships. In Japan,” Chris added in case it wasn’t clear.

Victor turned away. He could go to Japan and watch Yuuri compete and then what? His brain was so slow he could hardly think. What good would it do? He’d see Yuuri, yes, but…

“You know, I’m thinking of buying a ticket myself,” Chris admitted. “Sure, the flight to Japan is expensive, but it would be worth it. I’d get to see Yuuri again.” He winked at Victor. Then he raised his glass again. “That man _can dance_!” he exclaimed in a voice that was just a little too loud. “Best nights of my life…”

The words passed through Victor’s brain, leaving a trail of confusion in their wake. What nights was Chris talking about? The recording sessions for all the rounds of Skating with the Stars had always started from early mornings and ended in the afternoons. There hadn’t been anything at nights except for their dinners and Yuuri certainly hadn’t danced then!

“I…” Victor winced as his head throbbed. “I need to go home.” He needed to think about things and drink was only getting in the what was it again? Oh yes – way.

“Oh, come on! Don’t be like that!” Chris protested. “The night is still young!”

“You can stay here if you want.” Victor rose to his feet, wobbled a little, nearly fell back down and pulled out his wallet. He paid for his drinks and left. It took him several tries before he finally made it through the door and out onto the street.

The cold winter air hit his face and the effect of alcohol began to fade.

He walked home, speeding up with each step. By the time he reached his street he was completely sober.

A couple blocked his way. They held each other close as they pressed their mouths together, exchanging a long kiss as if the rest of the world didn’t exist.

Victor froze and stared at them for several seconds.

_Best nights of my life._

Chris had spent nights with Yuuri and now Chris was going to Japan to watch Yuuri compete and spend some more nights with Yuuri. What if all that talk about a tour with hot men had been nothing more than Chris visiting Yuuri in Detroit?

Victor bit his lip. Did Yuuri prefer Chris over him, then? His hand reached for his pocket and he pulled out the one thing that was guaranteed to have the answer to all his questions: his phone.

He did it without thinking and then stared at it for some time as he weighed a bunch of questions in his mind. How could his phone help him at a time like this? How would his phone know?

And then the answer came to him: Love Alarm. That app could tell him if Yuuri liked him or not. Sure, it hadn’t gone off before, but Victor had been making Yuuri’s life difficult at the time. Now things would be different. Now he could go, watch Yuuri compete, meet up with him and open the app. And then he’d know for sure.

How had he ever doubted his phone? It always had the answers to all his questions.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I meant to update a week ago, but I spent most of my free time wrapping presents, so here I am - a week late.
> 
> Happy holidays to everyone! Hope they are going well for all of you!
> 
> (Also, no, this fic isn't going to have a love triangle, I promise.)


	11. Time Away

A part of Yuuri dreaded his return home. Not because he didn’t want to see his family. He wanted to see them all very much. No, he always dreaded his return home for one simple reason: he dreaded the moment when he stepped out of the train at Hasetsu Station. It didn’t matter if he came in the spring, winter, fall or summer. That moment was always the same.

He’d step out onto the platform and a cloud of familiar smells would hit him all at once. There was the smell of food mixed with the smell of the station and something that was specific only to Hasetsu, that he’d never felt anywhere else. And then he’d feel as if he was stepping back in time. Suddenly he was eleven and returning home from his first serious competition.

_He was standing on the platform and thinking how strange it felt to come back home like this. His eye fell on a poster of a pop star everyone was obsessing about and a strange thought entered his mind._

I’m going to be the top figure skater in the world. One day there are going to be posters of me in this station and I’ll be the one they all talk about.

It was a stupid thought, but that moment had crystalized so well in his mind that the place with its smells always brought it to his mind.

That day when the train stopped and the doors opened, the memory of that thought was followed by another memory.

He remembered Victor standing with his phone in his hand, posting photos on Instagram as he tried to come up with snappy captions for them. _Victor’s face splitting in a smile as the likes poured into his phone…_

Perhaps, that hadn’t been so different form Yuuri’s desire to be famous.

He continued walking as his mind shuffled through all those memories of Victor before finally getting to that evening in the restaurant. Again, Yuuri couldn’t help the feeling that Victor had wanted to say something to him then and that, he – that is Yuuri – wanted to hear what Victor had wanted to say.

But Victor hadn’t said it and Yuuri hadn’t heard it, so maybe it was best to forget it all. Competing in Skating with the Stars had been fun, there was no denying that. And hadn’t Yuuri won in a way? He’d gotten a routine from Yakov! And he’d found inspiration to compete for the next season. Wasn’t that what it had all been about? So why did he feel as if he’d lost something important?

“Yuuri!” a familiar voice cut into his thoughts and brought him back to the present.

A figure ran towards him and he recognized Minako at once. She’d barely changed in the five years he hadn’t seen her. But, then, it wasn’t surprising – something about Minako made him certain that even ten years would barely change her. She was her same cheery, energetic self. The day she stopped being like this was a day he’d start to worry about her.

“Yuuri!” She nearly leapt at him and it took all his self-control to stay in place and not move out of her way. She pulled him into a hug and held on to him for several seconds before letting go and stepping back to get a good look at him. “You don’t write for so long and now – here you are without so much as a little text to let me know you’re coming!”

He felt a pang of guilt at those words. She was right: he should’ve written to her at least a few times. “How did you know I was coming?”

“I have my sources,” she said with a grin.

 _Mother,_ Yuuri thought and gave her a weak smile in return.

He followed her out of the station and down the streets. She talked the whole way, barely pausing to let him answer a question here or there, but he didn’t mind. She filled him in on all the news he’d missed since he’d been gone.

Perhaps, to someone else they would’ve sounded trivial and not worthy of anyone’s time, but Yuuri listened with interest. He’d missed this. He hadn’t realized just how much he’d missed this until she started telling him all about it.

He turned his head and studied the streets. He knew every house here, every tree. He remembered even what signs had been up on the houses and noticed a few that had changed in his absence. But so little had really, truly changed that walking down the street was like stepping back in time.

Here was the store he used to go to when he’d still been in school. There was the tree one of his classmates had climbed for a dare and then challenged Yuuri to climb. Up ahead was the bridge that for many years had been his road to his skating rink as well as part of his jogging route.

The sound of the ocean waves crashing on the beach reached his ears, as if it too was welcoming him back home.

Home.

He stopped and closed his eyes. This was home, where he knew every corner of every street from the way it looked to the way it smelled. Detroit could never be his home, not like _this_.

When he opened his eyes, he saw that Minako was watching him with a sad look on her face.

“We all missed you,” she told him.

He didn’t know what to say to that and turned to stare at the ocean. The sunlight sparkled on the surface of the water. In all his travels around the world, he’d never seen a more beautiful sight.

“Your parents are waiting for you,” Minako reminded him gently.

He nodded and kept going, throwing glances back at the ocean from time to time, as if sending it promises that he would return soon.

The street turned and soon he was standing before the inn, taking in every detail. Here too very little had changed since he’d been gone. Perhaps, the sign had a new coat of paint and the trees were a little taller, but that was all.

 _I’m home._ His heart made a happy leap at that thought.

And then the scent of his mother’s cooking reached his nose and a smile spread over his face. He rushed to the front door, forgetting for the moment that Minako was there with him.

Time did a strange thing then. He’d arrived in Hasetsu in the early afternoon, but after the big welcome, after people gathered around him on all sides, each of them chipping in with a question of their own, after trying to answer them all, after a big dinner made up of all his favourite dishes, and finally, _finally_ , getting a chance to retreat to his room, he discovered that it was very late and time to go to sleep.

Yes, he was back. He was _home_.

The morning found Yuuri jogging to his old skating rink, determined that even jet lag wouldn’t stop him from getting as much practice as possible before the competition. He’d come a whole week early to give himself time to visit his family, but that didn’t mean that he would idle away the hours, doing nothing. He was going to pour all his efforts into winning the next competition. He had to.

When he reached the skating rink, however, he stopped in front of it, uncertain for a moment as to what to do next.

Then, pulling himself together, he opened one of the doors and walked in.

As he’d expected, his old friend Yuuko was at the front desk. There was a thoughtful expression on her face as she read something on her phone. Whatever it was, it had engrossed her so completely that she hadn’t even looked up at the sound of the door opening.

He let himself study her for several minutes. She hadn’t changed much since he’d last seen her. He couldn’t help feeling as if time had stopped here as well.

She must’ve felt his gaze on her, because she raised her eyes even though he was certain he hadn’t made a single noise to give himself away.

“Yuuri!” she exclaimed. “You’re back!” She put her phone away and leaned forward with a grin that lit up her whole face.

“Yeah…” he mumbled sheepishly.

Her eyes swept over him and he adjusted his shirt self-consciously, suddenly very aware of how sweaty the jog had made him.

“How have you been?” she asked after a pause that had stretched almost long enough to be uncomfortable.

“…You know…” he searched around for the right words. “…competing…” he managed after a great deal of effort. “I thought – if you didn’t mind – that maybe I could compete here?” He wanted to add that he had a competition next week, but stopped himself. He wasn’t sure if he was allowed to be here and he certainly didn’t want to pressure her into letting him in if she wasn’t supposed to.

“Yes, of course!” she exclaimed. “You know the rink is always open for you!”

“Thank you,” he mumbled, wishing he knew a better way to tell her how much words like that meant to him. Just the way she said “of course” warmed his heart and made him feel indebted to her.

And then she said words he was least prepared to hear in that moment, “You were so awesome in Skating with the Stars!”

He froze. “You… you watched it?” As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he realized how stupid they were. Of course she’d watched it! Yuuko had gotten into figure skating before he had and for as long as he’d known her she watched every single figure skating competition. Of course she wouldn’t miss something like Skating with the Stars!

And then it occurred to him that in all his time on the show, he had never once thought that someone in Hasetsu would watch it. They might have _all_ watched it and he hadn’t even considered that.

“Did…” he began tentatively, licked his dry lips and tried again, “Did my family watch it too?” he asked. For a moment he ignored all common sense and allowed himself to hope.

“Hmmm… I think so,” Yuuko said. “I can’t imagine them missing something like this!”

Yuuri tried not to panic. He tried to smile, and nod, and act as if this was fine, but all he could think about were those first few programs when Victor and he had skated the simplest routines ever invented in the entire history of figure skating and all those times the fans had voted for them, saving them from getting eliminated.

He gave Yuuko a careful look as she led the way to the change room. She was going on about the competition as if it had been something amazing and not just a big disgrace. Who had she voted for? Was she one of those people who had saved him from elimination at every round? She wouldn’t vote for him just because she was his friend, would she? She’d vote for the pair that was better, wouldn’t she?

And he knew then that he would never ask her. He didn’t want to know the answers to these questions, because he wasn’t sure what he wanted those answers to be. More than that, he didn’t know what to say to someone if they told him that they’d voted for him.

Yuuko went on, oblivious to the thoughts going through Yuuri’s mind. For some reason, she’d studied Yuuri and Victor’s skating very closely and had even picked out her favourite elements (which she didn’t hesitate to tell him about).

“And I really liked the way Chris and Phichit skated!” she added, having apparently exhausted the list of things she liked about Yuuri and Victor’s skating.

Yuuri let out a breath of relief. She hadn’t voted for him. The knowledge made him relax.

Who knew how long she would’ve continued like this if Yuuri – having put on a pair of skates while she’d talked – hadn’t arrived at the rink itself just then.

She cut herself off and gave him a wide grin. “Why are you listening to me? Go do what you came here to do.”

“Thank you,” he said softly and stepped out onto the ice.

Yuuko had known Yuuri would come here: he was a figure skater with a competition coming up, _of course_ he would come to the only ice rink in town, but, for some reason, his appearance had managed to catch her off guard anyway. Maybe some part of her couldn’t believe this was really happening and didn’t think he’d come to Hasetsu.

Even now, watching him skate out on the ice, she couldn’t believe this really was Yuuri, one of the top figure skaters in the world and also her childhood friend, out there in front of her.

As if he’d heard her thoughts, Yuuri jumped and landed a perfect quadruple flip. She felt her mouth open slightly.

“Wow…” she whispered just under her breath.

Yuuri sped up and she followed him as best as she could. _This_ was the skill of a world champion. This was nothing like her own skating, an amateur’s skating, the skating of someone who taught children and teenagers while only having a bit of experience of their own. This was skating that made it look as if anything was possible, while hiding the days, weeks, months, years of hard work behind it.

A feeling stole over her then that this wasn’t her friend Yuuri out there, but a stranger she’d never met. This was the stranger who’d won all those medals.

Again she found herself worrying about him. Was he devoting all his time to skating, or were those rumours about him and Victor true? Now that he was here, was it a chance for her to help him? Or would she only make things worse by interfering?

Yuuri jumped again and, again, he nailed the jump perfectly.

For some reason, the sight of that jump derailed Yuuko’s train of thought. Here was one of the leading figure skaters, she told herself, and he was practicing right in front of her! At that realization everything else seemed to take a back seat.

Yuuri skating was so unlike all of his other routines that Yuuko couldn’t look away for a single second. This season of figure skating was going to be amazing!

That evening Yuuri sat in his room by the window and looked fondly at the view before him. There was no perfect beach, no tall mountain with a snowy peak, not even a picturesque forest with a little house that had smoke rising from its chimney. It was just a view out onto a street, a few houses, and a couple of trees, but it was filled with thousands of memories. And, what was even better, it brought him a sense of peace. All those times he’d worried, all those times he’d lost sleep because he couldn’t put together a program he was happy with, would’ve passed much easier, if he’d come here. All he had to do was look out of this window and the world was at peace.

He should’ve returned a long time ago. He should’ve come back to see his parents and sister. He should’ve…

Yuuri sighed.

The wind rustled through the leaves and they shook their branches, as if they were telling him that no, this was fine. Yuuri had come when he was ready and not earlier.

He closed his eyes, resting his head on his folded arms.

The rustling leaves whispered something more to him. What was it? Advice? A promise? Or, perhaps, a reminder of something he’d forgotten?

The following morning, Yuuri woke up early and jogged to the skating rink just as he’d done the day before. Everything, from the sun in the clear sky to the empty streets, looked just as it had done the day before and nothing suggested that this day would go any different.

This remained true until lunchtime when Yuuri, satisfied with the morning’s practice, left the change room.

He was debating what to have for lunch when Yuuko came rushing down the hall towards him. There was a look of panic on her face that made Yuuri stop.

“Yuuri!” she hissed. “You can’t go this way! You have to –”

A great roar rose up, drowning out the rest of her words and next thing he knew a stampede came crashing down the hallway towards them.

Yuuri gaped at the huge crowd that moved like a giant beast with a hundred arms and a hundred legs, knocking everything out of its way.

The beast split in half before him and the crowd surrounded him on all sides. There was no escape now.

It took him several minutes to realize that all the attention had focused on him, that the crowd was made up of people who all wanted to ask him a question, or even several. They were fighting for his attention, desperate for him to look at them or to tell them what they wanted to know.

“What?” he managed at last, their words not quite getting through to him.

“Is Victor here too?” someone shouted.

“Victor?” Yuuri repeated in disbelief. He almost asked them who Victor was before his brain caught up with him. “No,” he answered. “Why would he be here?”

“Didn’t he come with you?” someone else asked.

“Don’t you go everywhere together?” asked another voice.

“Is he going to come watch you compete?” another person demanded to know.

_They all want to know about Victor. Of course they do: Victor is a handsome model with lots of fans. But why do they think that Victor would come here? He and I have gone our separate ways after Skating with the Stars ended!_

Yuuri tried to explain this, but no one seemed to be interested in listening.

“Can I get your autograph?” someone asked.

And suddenly everyone discovered that they all wanted Yuuri’s autograph.

He didn’t argue and didn’t even try to tell them that he was hungry and really needed to go get lunch. He signed every piece of paper they handed him while others searched desperately for something for him to sign.

His hand was starting to feel numb when someone pushed their way through the crowd. “Yuuri!” He recognized Yuuko’s voice.

He raised his head and opened his mouth to apologize for the big crowd, but she beat him to it.

“Yuuri needs to come with me,” she declared, raising her voice above the din of the crowd. “It’s an emergency.”

The crowd parted to let them out and Yuuri hurried over to the doors, his heart beating fast. His mind raced, trying to imagine what the emergency could possibly be.

“What happened?” Yuuri asked as they made their way to the exit.

There were people in the front lobby and even people standing outside the entrance. In fact, the crowd seemed to go on forever, refusing to end.

“Not here,” Yuuko said. She waved at some of the people she passed, smiling and apologizing that they couldn’t stop and talk, or even stop to give out autographs.

Finally, when they were beyond the earshot of everyone in the crowd, she stopped and turned around to face him. “I’m so sorry!” she exclaimed. “It’s all my fault! I should’ve kept a closer eye on them! I should’ve told them not to post it! I should’ve confiscated their phones!”

“What are you talking about?” Yuuri asked, lost in the sea of apologies.

Yuuko stopped and took a deep breath. “My girls recorded your skating yesterday and posted the video.”

Oh. _Oh_. So _that_ was why all those people were here! That was what had drawn all their attention. Yuuri thought about the questions they’d attacked him with and wondered if there had been more than just the triplets posting that video. He’d seen drama unfold before in similar circumstances. Someone had posted a comment, someone else had responded and then things had escalated at breakneck speed.

Yuuri’s gut clenched. _Calm down,_ he told himself. _They’re just Victor’s fans. They watched the show and now they think he’s also here. They’ll figure out he isn’t here soon enough and then they’ll leave._

“I’m so sorry,” Yuuko apologized again, making him realize that he hadn’t said a single word aloud.

“It’s not your fault,” he finally managed. _It kind of is,_ a voice in the back of his mind insisted, but he ignored it. “Besides, I’m sure they’ll get bored soon and go.” He gave her a sad smile. “I’m not interesting enough to merit their attention.”

Yuuko protested that he _was_ very interesting, but he knew that she was only being polite.

The day before the Japanese National figure skating competition, Yuuri took a train to Tokyo. He said his farewells to his family first, of course, and promised to return soon. This was an easy promise to make since that year the World Championships would be held in Tokyo. However, Yuuri took care not to mention this fact just as, he was sure, his family took care to act as if they didn’t know this.

As the train pulled out of the station, Yuuri’s heart remained on the platform, next to his parents.

“I’ll come back,” he whispered. “I promise.”

The train picked up speed and soon it left Hasetsu far behind.

Usually as Yuuri got closer to another competition, he found that it would take up all the available space in his mind, blocking out every other thought. This time, however, all he could think about was the sad expression on his mother’s face as he released her to board his train.

It was still there in his mind when he left the train, and when he checked into his hotel room. It was even there the next morning when he went to practice for the short program. Three hours later it was still there as they announced his name over the speakers.

“Yuuri Katsuki!” Was it Yuuri’s imagination or was there more excitement than normal in the announcer’s voice?

A roar went up from the stands, snapping Yuuri out of his reverie.

Only then did he really _look_ at the stands. People weren’t just cheering: several of them held big posters with Yuuri’s name or face painted on them. He stared at it all in disbelief, unable to take any of it in. Posters, loud cheering, excited fans – none of this had ever happened to him before! More than that, he couldn’t remember seeing it happen to anyone else. It was the kind of thing that only happened in movies.

He remembered just in time that he should greet them in return and he raised his hand to give a little wave.

The cheering grew louder.

Maybe he _was_ in a movie, he suddenly thought and smiled at the idea.

Victor had never been to a figure skating competition before. In fact, it would be even more accurate to say that he’d never been to any kind of competition before (unless his participation in Skating with the Stars counted). He hadn’t thought it would be so hard to get a decent seat, for a start. He wondered as he’d made his purchase if the audience in Skating with the Stars had gone through such a hard time getting seats as well.

He’d hoped to get a seat at the front, where he would be right at the boards, but it turned out that there were no public seats at the boards at all and that the front three rows had completely sold out.

It wasn’t easy to figure out which seat was his, either, but as he found it at last he tried to tell himself that it was still very close to the ice. He would be able to see everything very well from here and – what was more important – he would be seen from the ice.

The flight to Japan had been long, which meant that on the way he’d had lots of time to think about what he would do. He’d come up with an excellent plan. He would watch Yuuri compete from somewhere close to the ice. At some point during his skate Yuuri would spot Victor in the crowd. Their eyes would meet and then…

Victor wasn’t actually sure what would happen then, but he was certain that everything would be sorted out once Yuuri saw that Victor had come.

Now that he was here and going over it in his mind, he was forced to admit to himself that, perhaps, there were one or two flaws in his plan.

The first group was called out onto the ice, but to Victor’s disappointment, Yuuri wasn’t in it. He watched as each of the skaters’ names was called out, urging time to go faster. Did they have to take so long to greet the audience? Did they really have to introduce everyone like that? They certainly hadn’t bothered to do that on the show!

He wondered then what else would be different from the way it had been on the show. The answer came soon enough in the way the marks were handed out. To Victor’s surprise, the marks were posted with no commentary from the judges. In fact, there seemed to be very little commentary in general. The skater looked at their marks, said something to their coach and that was it.

Victor felt let down, as if something important had been left out.

Skater after skater went out on the ice and Victor was beginning to feel lost. He thought the first skate was good, but the judges gave low marks for it (far too low in his opinion). A different skater went out and skated something Victor didn’t like, but for some reason that got him higher scores than the first one had gotten. It was then that it occurred to Victor that despite participating in Skating with the Stars, he had no idea how the figure skating scoring system worked.

The first group finished skating and the second group came out. Yuuri wasn’t among them. Yuuri had to be here, right? He represented Japan, so he had to be here.

Ten minutes later, Victor’s phone was out and he was checking whether or not Yuuri was participating in this competition. As soon as Victor saw the man’s name on the list, he let out a sigh.

After what felt like an eternity, Yuuri’s turn to compete was here at last. As soon as his name was called, Victor opened his mouth to cheer and was almost deafened by the roar that went up from the people all around him.

He beamed proudly. _That’s my partner down there – getting all the fans!_

Yuuri looked startled, as if he’d never gotten a reception like this before (something Victor wasn’t willing to believe), but gave them all a little wave anyway, which only served to increase everyone’s excitement.

Victor cheered along with them. It was impossible not to, not when their enthusiasm was so contagious.

Yuuri continued to smile at them all.

 _I’m right here,_ Victor thought. _Turn your head a little and you’ll see me._

But the announcer finished going through all the names then and the skaters went in different directions to do their warm up. Yuuri turned the other way and circled around the perimeter of the rink. He started on the opposite side, but came charging around towards Victor.

Victor’s heartbeat quickened. Yuuri was coming to him! Had Yuuri guessed that Victor was here? Had he spotted Victor in the crowd after all?

Just as Yuuri came within a few steps from the spot where he was bound to see Victor, his feet left the ice and he jumped.

The audience gasped and then broke out into applause. Yuuri’s jump both pleased and excited them. But Victor had to swallow down a feeling of great disappointment.

Yuuri hadn’t seen him.

The warmup ended and all the skaters but one left the ice. Yuuri left with them and Victor’s eyes followed him. Victor ignored the skater out on the ice and didn’t even join in with the applause to pretend that he was watching the next contestant.

His eyes didn’t leave Yuuri for a single instant. He saw the way the skater watched all the others as they went out on the ice. He saw the reflection of each skate in Yuuri’s face – in the way he rejoiced at each successful jump and agonized over each mistake. He watched Yuuri drink before setting his bottle down on the boards, removing his guards and stepping out onto the ice.

The air around Victor was charged with so much energy that, despite how focused he was on Yuuri, he felt it charge him too.

Yuuri bent his head forward a little to listened to a man talk to him and Victor wondered who the man was. And why wasn’t Yakov here? Wasn’t Yuuri’s coach supposed to come to his competitions? Victor wondered, forgetting completely that Yakov wasn’t Yuuri’s coach.

“Next on the ice – Yuuri Katsuki!” the words struck Victor like a charge of lighting and he felt his heart beat faster.

A cheer went up even louder than before and Victor joined in without thinking.

Yuuri came out onto the middle of the ice, smiling under all the lights. He was dressed mostly in black and he glittered under the lights. There was a shy smile on his face.

Victor felt a smile tug at the corners of his own mouth. It was impossible to see a smile like Yuuri’s and not give one in response. Everyone else must have felt it too, he decided, but couldn’t tear his eyes away from Yuuri to check.

The music began to play and Yuuri launched into his routine. It was the same one from that video that had gone viral a few days ago. Victor had watched that video at least a dozen times, mentally thanking the person responsible for the recording each time he reached the end.

He’d recognized that routine the moment he’d seen the video: it was what Yuuri had skated all those times Victor had found him skating alone. Seeing it now, with Yuuri in his costume and the music playing all around him, Victor felt as if everything had come together in this moment.

And then Yuuri jumped.

Victor’s heart stopped.

An eternity or possibly only a few seconds passed and Yuuri landed flawlessly.

Victor breathed out.

Why was he so worried? He joined his hands and tried to calm down. Everything was fine. Yuuri could do this. After all, Yuuri was one of the top figure skaters in the world and this wasn’t his first competition.

 _See me,_ Victor thought. _Turn around and see me. I’m right here._

But Yuuri kept going, completely ignorant of Victor’s presence.

The music ended and Yuuri stopped. And still he hadn’t noticed Victor.

 _Now. He’ll see me now,_ Victor decided.

Yuuri bowed to the judges, turned the other way, presenting Victor with a view of his side and bowed again. Then he turned and skated away to the kiss and cry.

He hadn’t seen Victor.

 _It’s fine. Everything is fine. I’ll just…_ But he couldn’t think of what he would do next. Everything inside him felt numb. He reached for his phone, but it brought him no comfort.

What could he possibly do now? What did people do in situations like this? He wanted to ask his phone for advice, but he had no idea how to phrase his question. Where did he even start?

A roar went up from the audience and he raised his eyes from his phone. The announcer was saying something, but Victor couldn’t make sense of his words and then his eye fell on the screens and he saw the scoreboard. Yuuri was in first place.

Of course he was.

He was happy for Yuuri, he really was, but that didn’t change the fact that he had no idea what to do now and no one to ask for advice.

 _Chris would know,_ Victor thought bitterly and instantly regretted that thought. He remembered his conversation with Chris all too well. Was that man also here in this crowd? Had Yuuri spotted _him_ in the sea of faces?

 _No, he probably arranged to meet Yuuri after the competition is over,_ Victor thought bitterly.

The image of Chris waiting sprung in his mind as if from a memory:

_Chris stood outside the arena with a bouquet of roses in his arms and a confident smile on his lips. He was in a fashionable coat that was unbuttoned at the top despite the cold wind blowing around him._

_Yuuri came out of the arena, spotted Chris and his face broke into a happy smile. “I hope you haven’t been waiting long,” he said as soon as he got close enough._

_And Chris would say something clever to that, something like…_

Victor struggled to think of something suitable. Maybe “No, not long”? Or “I don’t mind waiting for you”? Or “I could wait for you forever if I needed to”? There. Perfect.

Around him the competition was ending. People started getting up and making their way to the exits, but he remained where he was, feeling miserable about the whole thing.

Surely he deserved to be the one to meet up with Yuuri! He’d come all this way, after all. Was he going to have to go back without at least having exchanged a few words with the man?

It wasn’t fair.

_I can wait outside for him. He’s bound to see me if I stand outside the right door. And if… if Chris is there, then…_

He didn’t know how that thought ended. He didn’t want to think about how that thought could end.

The decision made, he rose from his seat and walked towards the nearest door.

It took him some time and circling the arena several times before he found the exit the skaters were using. He watched them all leave – one at a time and then a few in small groups. A few times he looked around to see who else was waiting out here with him.

Chris wasn’t out here, but that only meant that Victor couldn’t see him. He could be waiting around the corner. He could be waiting at a place Yuuri and he had agreed to meet.

 _Like a hotel room,_ Victor thought and wished he hadn’t.

Finally a familiar figure appeared in the doorway. Yuuri was alone. He was wrapped in a scarf and wearing a hat, but Victor had no trouble recognizing him.

He cast a quick look around himself (still no sign of Chris) and came forward. “Good evening, Yuuri.” He tried to sound as casual as possible despite how loud his heart was beating in his chest.

“Victor? What are you doing here?” Was that disappointment in Yuuri’s voice, or merely surprise?

“I was waiting for you.” The words sounded foolish the moment they were out of his mouth and he regretted that he hadn’t prepared something better to say.

“Oh.” Yuuri looked at a loss as to how to respond to that.

 _I shouldn’t have come. He doesn’t want me here,_ Victor decided and agonized over this. Why _had_ he come?

“I should probably –” Victor began just as Yuuri started to say something too.

They both stopped at the same time.

A pause.

“What did you want to say?” Yuuri prompted.

“No, you go first,” Victor said.

Yuuri shook his head. “I insist.”

Victor also wanted to insist, but he found himself giving in. “I just thought… You probably have plans,” _with Chris_ , “so I’ll just go. Um. I’ll see you tomorrow. At the… uh… competition.” He’d never been this bad with words before, surely! He would’ve noticed it by now if he was.

“I was going to get dinner,” Yuuri admitted. “Do you want to come with me?”

“Yes!” the word slipped out, bursting with excitement and Victor mentally cringed. “I would love to,” he managed in a calmer tone.

“I know a good place,” Yuuri told him and led the way.

As Victor followed Yuuri he found that he didn’t much care where they were going. Yuuri hadn’t sent him away and that was all that mattered.

On the way he studied Yuuri’s face, as if he hadn’t seen him for several years. _But it_ feels _like it’s been several years,_ he pointed out to himself.

How long _had_ it been?

This took a bit of thinking before he could come up with an answer: two and a half months.

Why did it feel like several years, then?

He spent some time puzzling over this and that was the reason why they walked quite far before he realized that he hadn’t said a single word to Yuuri for at least ten minutes.

_How awkward! He must be regretting inviting me to come with him!_

As soon as the thought occurred to him, he found himself unable to look into Yuuri’s face and confirm that this was indeed the case.

The silence stretched out, demanding to be filled.

 _I need to say something, anything._ But nothing came to mind at all.

“We’re here,” Yuuri told him.

Victor stared numbly at the door and sent a silent thank you to whichever god had decided to take pity on him.

Yuuri opened the door and held it, motioning for Victor to go inside. Victor entered without thinking, realizing too late that he should’ve been the one to hold the door open.

He stopped and stood aimlessly just beyond the doorway until Yuuri stepped forward and led the way to a table.

“We can just take any table that’s free,” Yuuri said.

 _What’s wrong with me? I need to pull myself together! Come on, Victor!_ He mentally kicked himself and rushed forward to pull a chair out for Yuuri.

Yuuri rewarded Victor with a smile and sat down.

Victor pushed his chair in a little and went to take his own seat. His brain went into full gear, determined to make up for his earlier blunders. “How have you been?” he asked.

“Same as always,” Yuuri answered after a short pause. “I spent most of my time training for this competition,” he added.

Victor remembered the gruelling schedule Yuuri had described to him and that he’d tried to follow himself. “But you need to rest sometimes too!” he protested.

“I rest also,” Yuuri assured him.

A waiter chose that moment to show up at their table and asked them something in Japanese.

“He wants to know what we’d like to order,” Yuuri translated.

 _We haven’t even looked at the menus!_ Victor realized. “Er… two more minutes?” he asked, holding up two fingers.

The waiter accepted this answer and left.

“What do you recommend?” Victor asked, making a show of studying the menu.

“Everything they make here is good,” Yuuri told him. “I… I don’t really know what I’ll get myself,” he confessed.

They debated the merits of a few of the dishes, but when the waiter returned, Victor found himself ordering one of the dishes at random. It didn’t matter what he ate, he decided.

By the looks of it, Yuuri had come to a similar conclusion himself.

The waiter took their menus and left, making no comment about their choices.

“What about you?” Yuuri asked, giving Victor an innocent look.

“Sorry?” Victor asked, thrown off guard by the question.

“I mean: how have you been?” Yuuri clarified.

Victor opened his mouth to answer and hesitated. How was he supposed to answer a question like that? “Just… working…” he mumbled and instantly regretted it. The answer made it sound like he had nothing but work going on in his life. There was so much more than that!

 _Is there?_ An inner voice asked. _What else have you been doing?_

 _Hanging out with Chris,_ he pointed out not unreasonably.

But he was quick to realize that mentioning Chris would be a very bad idea. He wasn’t ready to listen to Yuuri talk about him. He didn’t want Yuuri to add any more details to what Chris had called the best nights of his life. Victor’s imagination had been quite enough.

 _There must be something else I can tell him about,_ Victor thought desperately.

But his mind was oh-so-very blank on the subject.

 _I haven’t even used the HotDate app in our time apart,_ Victor suddenly realized. Strangely enough, he didn’t even miss it. No, that app wouldn’t make a suitable conversation topic.

“I often come here when I’m in Tokyo for competitions,” Yuuri said, startling Victor out of his thoughts. He looked around the place as if taking it in for the first time. “Not a lot of people know about this place, but it serves really good food.” He smiled at Victor. “And it’s usually empty.”

He said the words as if that was a good thing, making Victor think about them. Of course, with all his fans Yuuri would like to go to places where he wouldn’t be bothered, but…

Victor looked around the room. It was an old-fashioned restaurant with interiors that had probably been here for at least a hundred years. There were paintings on the walls and all kinds of antiques sitting on little shelves. A big box-like object sat in a corner. Victor wondered what it was for. This didn’t look like his kind of place at all. It certainly didn’t look like there would be any half-naked dancers.

The waiter arrived with their food and Victor took in the sight of his meal.

“Wow…” he whispered. Everything was arranged with so much care on his place that he wondered how the cook could’ve done it in such a short time. “It’s so beautiful! It seems a shame to eat it.”

“It always is,” Yuuri agreed.

“I know! I’ll take a picture of it!” Victor pulled out his phone and snapped a quick shot of the two dishes. Inspiration struck and he opened the Instagram app to make a post

 _A delicious meal with my skating partner,_ he typed under the photo and hit the post button.

He raised his eyes and saw that Yuuri had already started eating. He pocketed his phone hastily and joined in.

The food really was very good.

They soon found a conversation topic and spent the whole evening talking about food – the delicious meals they’d had in different places, the food they’d love to try again and the food they’d never tried.

When they finished the meal, Yuuri called the waiter over and asked for two bills.

Victor opened his mouth to protest, but the waiter left before he could say anything.

Five minutes later they were stepping out into a beautiful night and all Victor could think about was the bill and how he should’ve paid for Yuuri.

“Where are you staying?” Yuuri asked.

“One of the hotels near the rink,” Victor answered and tried to remember what it was called.

“I’m staying in that one,” Yuuri nodded at a tall building that towered over all the others. Victor vaguely remembered passing it on his way to the competition.

“I’ll walk you there,” Victor offered and congratulated himself on this idea. “My hotel is right next to it.” It probably was, but even if it wasn’t, that didn’t matter.

Yuuri accepted without argument and they made for the hotel.

“You must be very tired,” Victor said. “I remember how tired I used to get after each day of training.”

“I’m used to it,” Yuuri assured him.

“Yes, of course.” Victor cursed himself. Why did he keep on blundering like this? “But, still, you need some rest,” he insisted before remembering that they were going to the hotel where Yuuri would be able to rest.

Yuuri gave a soft laugh. “I will,” he promised.

They reached his hotel and stopped. Why wasn’t the building further away? Why couldn’t they have had another hour to walk together like this? He needed more time with Yuuri, more time to…

…to make an even bigger fool of himself.

No, it was hopeless. He didn’t know how to win Yuuri’s interest and, besides, Yuuri was already interested in Chris, wasn’t he?

Suddenly he became aware of the fact that Yuuri was standing close to him. Very close. He could feel the boy’s breath on his face and see his eyelashes so clearly he could almost count every single one.

Yuuri’s eyes were half-closed.

“Yuuri…” Victor whispered and wondered how that sentence was supposed to end.

Yuuri blinked and stepped back. “Sorry, I…” he mumbled, looking away. “I’m very tired. You were right – I need to rest.” He met Victor’s eye briefly. “Good night.”

“Good night…” Victor repeated.

Yuuri gave him a quick smile then he turned around and walked away.

Victor stood still, watching Yuuri go and waiting for the boy to turn around and look back at him, or, quite possibly, to come back and say that he’d decided not to spend the night at his hotel.

But the door closed behind Yuuri just as a group of people came out of the hotel, blocking Victor’s view of Yuuri.

“Good night,” Victor whispered again. He turned around and started walking towards his own hotel.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't believe how long I spent thinking "I'll update tomorrow" and then not updating...
> 
> One thing I learned in the past week is: while trying to write with a crappy pen is very distracting, so is writing with a very nice pen. Am I writing this fic with a fancy fountain pen? Maybe...
> 
> I don't know if any of you saw the [Tumblr post about the YOI remix challenge](https://yoiremixchallenge.tumblr.com/post/642314959760621568/hello-im-thinking-about-running-a-remix), but I'm thinking that I might give it a go? It looks like it could be really fun!


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